The True Zero
by The Distorted Shadow
Summary: Arisato Minato sacrificed himself to prevent the fall, however he was definitely not expecting to suddenly appear in a different world to be the familiar of an over aggressive loli. FoZ/Persona 3 crossover.
1. Summoning The Zero

Well, I decided I need a break from Naruto fics so I've decided to write something completely different and this is the result.

Anyway, I'll just get this out of the way now:

**I Do Not Own Familiar Of Zero Or The Persona Series**

* * *

Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière was a young girl, well to be perfectly fair she was older than she looked since she was chronologically sixteen years old however seemed to possess the body of a thirteen year old. She possessed a long hair of shade of light pink that fell down her back while a pair of bangs fell to frame her petite face.

She was dressed in a uniform that consisted of a ridiculously short skirt, thigh high stockings, a white blouse and a dark purple mantle that fell loosely across her shoulders.

Right now she was standing amongst her peers, each one wearing similar clothes, (though the boys wore trousers instead of skirts) while they interacted with their newly summoned familiars.

The springtime summoning ritual was a sacred practice of the Tristain Academy Of Magic, it was performed near the start of a student's second year and was the moment that they contracted an animal to act as their familiar for the rest of their lives. A general rule of thumb for the ritual was that a summon represented their summoner, for example a fire mage would summon a fire based animal, the more powerful the familiar the stronger the mage was.

Of course there were exceptions, the principal was one such exception, being an incredibly skilled and powerful air mage despite his familiar being an albino field mouse (that he loved with all his heart for its ability to sneak under women's dresses and let him know the colour and style of their underwear).

Louise however was silently praying that she wouldn't be called up to perform the ritual, after all, she was known as 'Louise the Zero' due to her track record of never successfully casting a spell in her life. This ritual would either prove to everyone that they were wrong and she was in fact capable of magic… or force her to drop out if she failed.

She really didn't want to leave the school, she wanted to prove herself to be a talented mage like her mother before her but despite that, she couldn't stop herself from fearing the results of failure.

"Is that everyone?" asked an older man with a receding hairline. He wore a small pair of semi-circular glasses and a set of long blue robes while he held a staff in one of his hands.

"Not quite Mr Colbert, miss Vallière hasn't gone yet," a red haired beauty currently kneeling beside an overgrown lizard with red skin and a fire lit at the end of its tail said while glancing over towards the pinkette with a smirk adorning her face.

"Alright then, come forward miss Vallière and perform the ritual," the man known as professor Colbert instructed the young girl who silently cursed the buxom red head for point her out as she walked forward with her head held high, refusing to show any weakness in front of her peers.

Immediately the class started whispering about the possibilities, apparently everyone was betting that she would summon an explosion just like every other time she tried magic however she refused to let that get to her.

"You said you could summon something greater than this boy right Louise?" the bronze skinned red head said from her position next to the salamander she had summoned, her tone being picked up by the shorter girl as mocking while in reality there wasn't a hint of malice within it, instead possessing a hint of hopefulness.

If anyone was to say anything about the red head's relationship with Louise, they would say the pair were antagonistic towards each other, however that was only partially true. Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt-Zerbst did indeed make moves to get a rise from the young pink haired girl however she did so less because of their long standing family rivalry and more because she thought Louise was funny when she was flustered.

To top it off, despite her being one of the people that made the most fun of the Loli, she really wanted Louise to prove her wrong. She may have called the girl a Zero with no magical potential at all but she knew that that was a lie, no one that had no magical potential could create such disastrous results.

Which simply meant that there was some other reason for the young girl to fail every time, however what it was that created such a problem was beyond the young fire mage.

"Of course," she stated confidently before turning her head away as her hand shook in nervous anticipation before she whispered too low for anyone to hear, "please."

Pointing her wand out and raising it to point at the sky she proceeded to chant an incantation that left many looking at her with bemused expressions at her strange call.

My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe, my divine, beautiful, wise, powerful servant, heed my call, I wish from very bottom of my heart, answer to my guidance and appear!" came her call before she proceeded to wave her wand down before her only for a large explosion to rock the courtyard they were standing in and knock everyone off their feet.

XXX XXX XXX

Arisato Minato knew that something was _wrong_, he should not have been capable of thinking or feeling after what he had done. His entire being should currently be existing as a seal, his mind locked in eternal slumber in order to protect his world from annihilation.

However he could think, he could see, hear, smell, he was conscious and _that _was a _very _bad sign as far as he was concerned.

Opening his eyes he was greeted by a sight that made his blood run cold… there were two moons in the day sky, that immediately told him that he wasn't on earth anymore.

Getting up he noted that there were a few dozen teenagers all staring at him as if he had just fallen from the sky, which if he was perfectly honest wasn't an impossibility.

"Um, excuse me, where am I and what am I doing here?" he asked cautiously, it was no good fretting over his existence as anything other than the great seal when there was nothing he could do about it right now, so he decided that getting at least a basic idea of what this place was would probably be the best thing he could do.

Immediately he was greeted by a series of whispers from the people further away from him while the pink haired girl that stood mere feet away from him twitched in obvious irritation.

"Hey, that's a peasant right?"

"Yeah, those clothes have to belong to a peasant."

"Zero Louise summoned a peasant."

Upon hearing the onlookers making their comments, Minato could do nothing more than blink in surprise at the simple fact that they were not speaking Japanese like he just did, but French.

"_I will have to thank Bebe and Mitsuru-senpai for teaching me French if I ever see them again," _the young boy thought to himself as he stood up and patted his clothes clean from the dust that had covered it.

"Excuse me," he said, making everyone look at him in surprise after his previous display of speech, "where am I and what am I doing here?"

"Mr Colbert! Please can I retake the summoning!" Louise asked a kind looking man he had failed to notice due to being just outside of his peripheral vision.

"No miss Vallière the springtime summoning ritual is a sacred practice and redoing it is to spit on the founder himself, now unless you want to be expelled, complete the contract," the robe wearing man stated while everyone completely ignored the blue haired boy that had been summoned.

"Fine," she said with obvious embarrassment in her tone before she walked over to the young boy she had summoned and placed a small stick at his head, "you should feel honoured, not many peasants get to do this. My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. Pentagon of the five elemental powers; bless this humble being, and make him my familiar."

After saying that she proceeded to put her hands behind his head and pull it down into what he immediately recognised as a kiss.

Let it be said that while Minato was a polite though admittedly distant person, he was anything but a doormat and having a girl that looked no older than thirteen years old pull him down for what appeared to be a kiss was not something he would allow… especially without explanation.

"Wha?!" came the pink haired girls call as she found a palm pushing against her face and forcing her off balance as the neck she had been holding onto suddenly vanished as the boy ducked, allowing her hands to pass over his head before she hit the floor, rump first.

Silence reigned in the courtyard as everyone stared at the scene before them, the human familiar had literally knocked the Zero down during the contracting and didn't seem to either realise or care about what he had done.

"I'll ask again, where am I and what am I doing here?" Minato asked in his hard learned French, knocking the blue robed man out of his shock.

"You are in the Tristain Academy Of Magic and you are here because you were summoned by miss Vallière to be her familiar," the man he identified as Mr Colbert said calmly.

The blue haired boy blinked a couple of times in surprise, he didn't really react much to anything that would normally be considered unusual, hell he had discovered that he had been housing a fragment of death itself inside him for about a decade so finding out that he was somewhere he had never heard of to be made a witches familiar… while it was annoying it really wasn't the worst that had happened to him (then again he was someone that could say that they came face to face with a deity and stood his ground).

"I see… and what if I was doing something important when I was summoned?" he asked seriously, earning a simple shrug off the older man.

"Then it won't be finished," Mr Colbert said dismissively, earning a small scowl off the dark haired boy in the process.

"I see," the young boy muttered quietly before asking yet another question, "is there any way to undo the summoning and return me to what I was doing before?"

"No there is not, so please allow miss Vallière to complete the ritual before she's expelled," the blue robed man requested, earning a blank stare off the young boy before him.

"And why should I?" the shock that passed through the crowd was easily noticeable, as was Louise's shaking as she stood with her arms at her side and her head bowed down to look at the floor, "she forcibly tore me from a job that I had given my life towards completing, one that needed to be done to protect all of my friends and their families and now you expect me to just sit back and let myself become that same little girl's slave for life?"

Hearing the Japanese boys question made everyone in the clearing flinch slightly at what he said, honestly he did not sound happy, sure he was still quiet and non-threatening but that didn't change the fact that he sounded angry.

"W-well to be fair she didn't intend on summoning you, it was the universe itself that decided that you were the perfect familiar for her," Mr Colbert said in an attempt to try and smooth things over with this young boy.

Taking a couple of calming breaths, Minato discreetly searched to see if he still had his evoker on him, quickly discovering that it wasn't there, meaning he would have to rely on his melee skills if he got into a fight with these mages and while he was confident in his combat ability (fighting shadows and a nightly basis really did get a person's confidence up for a fight) he was certain these mages wouldn't try to fight him close range.

"(sigh) fine, so how is this contract finalised?" he asked the older man with resignation in his tone, he doubted he would get far without some support in this world and if he ever wanted to go home then he would have to work with these people to find one and pray to every deity he knew of that Erebus didn't succeed in bring Nyx down to destroy humanity before he had found a way back.

"A kiss," the older man said as he watched the youngest Vallière walk towards the blue haired summon.

"Is there any other way?" Minato asked, he still didn't like the idea of kissing a young girl he didn't know.

"No there isn't," the balding man stated with a bemused expression.

"Does it have to be on the lips?" the young wild card asked earning another smile off the older man.

"No, you can be kissed anywhere to seal the contract," and with that the young boy found his head once again being lowered by the young girl as the crowd looked on in anticipation, only to watch the boy put his hand between his mouth and Louise's earning her ire.

"Why you ignorant peasant! How dare you refuse a kiss from a noble!" Louise shouted in outrage as she gritted her teeth in anger while everyone watching started laughing at her plight.

"I don't kiss girls I don't know and like," Minato said calmly before feeling a burning sensation passing through his body and into his left hand, honestly it was an incredibly painful feeling but he had fought death and a literal Goddess so a little pain like this wasn't going to make him do more than grimace in discomfort before looking at whatever had appeared on the back of his hand.

'0', on the back of his hand was a large oval, proof of his natural affinity towards the fool arcana and his wild card ability.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a series of sniggers and a furiously blushing pinkette before a cacophony of laughter erupted from all of the other students.

"Hahaha Zero Louise's runes are a zero!"

"She really is a zero!"

"SHUT UP!" Minato almost fell down at the sheer volume the tiny pink haired girl before shouted at, honestly how could such a small girl have such large lungs.

However what really caught his attention was the fact that they kept calling her a Zero as if it was a bad thing, he was a zero and it was that very fact that allowed him to become the strongest member of SEES with only Fūka surpassing him in any aspect of ability and that was because of her persona being completely devoted to the art of reconnaissance and intelligence.

Shaking his head, he decided to just ignore the teasing that his so called 'master' was receiving, instead he decided to experiment and see if the mark had any special properties, with his first experiment being to change his persona.

He was left with an almost invisible smile adorning his face as the rune on the back of his hand changed with the persona, with it now displaying 'XIII' the same number as the arcana for the persona he had switched to… Thanatos. He would experiment to see if this mark allowed him to summon his persona without an evoker when he was alone, he honestly didn't know how these people would react to seeing a persona appear out of nowhere yet.

"That's enough students, return to your dorms and get to know your familiars," Mr Colbert instructed, knocking the young boy out of his musings as he witnessed the gathered children start flying away from the courtyard, he would've been shocked if he hadn't already experienced even stranger situations during his time at Gekkoukan High School.

Feeling a hand clamp around his arm, he soon found himself being dragged away from the courtyard by the young pink haired girl that had summoned him. He was honestly surprised at her physical strength, he was definitely not expecting it from such a small girl even if he was certain he could overpower her if he ever wanted to.

Though until he knew if he could summon his persona's he wasn't going to try getting into a fight with a mage, especially since he didn't have any weapons or items on him… he knew that if he had the omnipotent orb in his possession he could easily destroy this world with only minor resistance, he was pretty sure that only a small number of people would be capable of using almighty element magic (if any) but as it stood right now he didn't have that accessory so there was no point thinking on it.

His mind quickly recorded the layout of this 'school' as he was dragged through it, spending so much time in Tartarus where every floor changed every day meant he had plenty of practice getting lost and having to retrace his steps, giving him an almost map like ability to know where he was in relation to where he started.

Still, he would also admit that this school wasn't his cup of tea, he honestly preferred the more modern Gekkoukan High to this medieval style fortress. That's not to say the place wasn't nice, it was most certainly well maintained and spacious, it was just a little to primitive for his tastes.

He continued to allow himself to get dragged along by the small pink haired girl, he really didn't like the fact that she had torn him from his place as the great seal but that teacher did have a point, it's not like she intentionally summoned him so while he would do everything he could to try and find a way home, he would help this girl if she needed it, simply because it was apparently his duty to do so.

Finally he found himself being dragged inside a spacious room with a queen sized bed jutting from the wall on his left, while a wardrobe along with a chest of drawers and a large desk were located on the other side of the room, with a large window allow light to filter into the room.

Minato quickly noted that there was a small pile of hay located next to the bed and his eyes immediately narrowed at the thoughts that popped into his head, especially given how this little girl had been acting since summoning him.

"Where will I be sleeping?" he asked with a barely noticeable edge to his voice, one that was most certainly not picked up by the pink haired girl standing before him.

Immediately he noticed the young girl shaking, judging by her previous actions he was pretty certain she was about to explode into some sort of tirade about peasants and nobles.

"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO A NOBLE LIKE THAT!" yep, he was right, "YOU SHOULD BE HONOURED TO SERVE ME!"

"You didn't answer my question," the blue haired boy stated blankly, completely unfazed by her volume, years of listening to music at full volume and going to kendo practice where everyone yells at the top of their lungs really made dealing with shouting rather easy for someone as calm and distant as him.

He could literally see the rage in her eyes as she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists at his casual dismissal of her demands, if he was honest with himself, she was probably going to be a real pain to live with until he managed to get it through to her that he didn't care about social status or anything like that. He had made so many different friends during his time at Gekkoukan High that such things didn't matter to him anymore, surely someone that made friends with social recluses, jocks, perverts, prudes, foreign exchange students, little girls, an old couple, teachers and even a dog was the sort of person that wouldn't judge based on social status.

"OVER THERE!" she shouted angrily while pointing towards the pile of hay, confirming his suspicions and making his eye twitch slightly, though not enough for the pink haired mage to notice.

"No," he stated without hesitation, making Louise look at him with even more anger before turning towards her desk and walking over, only to pull a riding crop out of one of the drawers and hold it menacingly, _'great, looks like I'll have to sleep with Beelzebub equipped if she has access to something like that.'_

The young girl failed to notice his familiar runes glow slightly as the zero once again changed, this time becoming 'XV' as he switched to a persona that would make her 'weapon' completely ineffective.

"You ungrateful peasant, how dare you deny a noble," she growled out through her teeth as she moved in for the kill, completely unaware of the fact that her small force was about to meet an immovable object.

Let it be said that while it is necessary to summon a persona to use its magic or special attacks, it is not necessary to receive it's passive abilities like say, elemental resistance, such as how right now, Minato is completely immune to blunt force trauma of all kinds, including whips strikes.

The blue haired boy stood with a bored expression adorning his face as he waited for the violent loli to grow tired of hitting him with the horse riding tool.

After several minutes of attempting to make her familiar suffer for his insolence, Louise found herself panting as her arm burned from the amount she had used it, her mind lamenting the fact that he didn't make a single noise during her punishment.

"(pant) I hope (pant) you learned your (pant) lesson, (pant) peasant," she said while panting from her anger fuelled actions.

"That you're into BDSM?" he asked with a completely straight face, deciding to get a rise out of this girl that seemed to think she owned him like some sort of pet.

"WHAT?!" came the expected response from the young girl before she once again hit him with the tool, this time aiming for his face, only for her eyes to widen at the fact that his cheek didn't so much as shake from the strike, "wha-what are you?"

Minato had to admit that the girl was obviously shocked at his current immunity to strike damage and that her previous anger and self-righteousness had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, leaving her in the position of a little girl staring up at a reared bear that was ready to eat her.

"A true zero," immediately her eyes widened before a scowl appeared on her face at his words, obviously she hated the mere word zero due to the number of times she had been called one.

"Stop… mocking… me," she ground out between her teeth, earning absolutely no change in the blue haired persona users expression as he watched her seethe at his statement.

"I'm not," he stated calmly, something that really annoyed her, so far he didn't seem to express himself much, if at all, "there are two meanings behind the number zero."

That statement caught her attention and made her look at him with confusion clearly written on her face, it was obvious that she wasn't as well practiced as him at the art of hiding his emotions.

"What do you mean?" she asked, she knew she was called 'Louise the zero' because of her zero per cent success rate at performing magic, however if there was another meaning behind the number then perhaps she could use that as a way to help her shrug off their mocking words.

"Zero can mean nothing, or something with unlimited potential, I am defined by the second meaning," he stated calmly, earning another several blinks of surprise off the young pink haired girl as she looked at him with wide eyes.

What he said did make her feel a little better about herself, sure she had a massive failure rate when it came down to magic but she did create explosions and did succeed in summoning a familiar so surely she had magical potential so she simply had to figure out what it was that made her incapable of using magic.

"That doesn't explain why you aren't hurt," she pointed out, growing increasingly frustrated when he simply shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly in response.

Crossing her arms and looking away from her familiar, she tried to think of a way to get him to act in line and stop being so wilful, however without being able to make him fear her, she really didn't know what she could do, hell it's not like she could use magic to hurt him?

That was when it struck her, while her magic was indeed incapable of subtle things, it was more than capable of hurting people, she should know given how often she had been caught in the explosions, so with a vicious smirk adorning her face she pulled out her wand and pointed it at the blue haired boy before making the incantation.

That was when she knew that he really wasn't the sort of familiar she could control. Instead of being hit by an explosion upon her finishing her spell, he had grabbed her wrist and twisted it in order to force her to release her wand which now rested in his hand.

Minato really couldn't believe the state of the girl that currently knelt before him, she was holding her wrist like it had just been run over by a car when all he had done was a small disarming move he had learnt a few years ago, seriously, if something that small was making her cry then she really had a soft life.

Sure he realised that he wasn't exactly normal as far as pain tolerance went, the mere fact that he accidentally summoned death itself before his body was capable of handling its power and immediately managed to fight two shadows before falling unconscious due to exhaustion was proof that his limits weren't the same as normal peoples.

But even Fūka could handle a disarming move with only minor discomfort and she had to stay at the entrance of Tartarus due to being too physically weak to fight shadows, so for this pink haired mage to be so affected by his action proved that she was not used to muscle pain at the very least.

"W-why? Why am I the only person to summon a familiar that ignores me?" the young boy heard coming from the girl as she started sobbing over the fact that her familiar wouldn't listen to her.

"How does the fact that the other students weren't trying to abuse their familiars sound?" the former SEES member asked before turning around to leave the room.

"W-what the hell do you mean by that!" the short girl shouted in anger at his accusation.

"The other students were being friendly towards their familiars while you keep trying to put me down," the young Japanese boy said before opening the door.

"Wait! Where do you think you're going?!" she demanded from him, earning a minor shrug of his shoulders.

"Out," was his only response before leaving the room and closing the door behind him, resulting in the young Vallière growing red with anger at the fact that he had not only left without her permission but hadn't given back her wand.

"FAMILIAR!" it was a call that was lost on the wild card persona user due to having turned on his mp3 player and put both his headphones on, honestly it was nice to listen to a good tune after dealing with a snot nosed brat like that, besides he had more important things to deal with than putting up with a spoilt brat trying to force him into submission.

He decided to ignore the extra weight that latched itself to him, he had already predicted that his so called 'master' would try to force him to stay and obey however she was nowhere near heavy nor strong enough to stop him, seriously, he had fought the reaper and won, dealing with a stubborn brat wasn't going to be that hard.

Sure he noticed that every student he passed started laughing their assess off at the fact that a mage couldn't control their familiar, not that he cared, it was Louise they were laughing at, not him.

He would probably feel sorry for her if it wasn't for the simple fact that she had already gotten on his bad side with her 'holier than thou' attitude and her abusive personality, he was sure that she would probably be considered a Tsundere type character if she was in an anime… that thought immediately made him cringe, he really didn't need the thought of her falling for him entering his head, especially given how that almost always seemed to happen, hell even his homeroom teacher had fallen into that category after discovering he was the close friend she had met while playing innocent sin online.

He actually wished that women here wouldn't end up falling for him, it would simply result in him hurting even more people when he finally managed to return home (hopefully before Nyx's descent so he could retake his place as the great seal).

If he was honest with himself, he was walking around for two primary reasons, one, to find a place to see if he can summon persona's via the runes on the back of his hand and two, to see if he can find a door to the velvet room in this world, if he could find Igor then he could find out what was happening right now and if there was any way back home.

He found it rather easy to map out the layout of the school, honestly it was actually rather simple, six towers arranged in the shape of a pentagon with the largest tower located in the centre of the formation, while they were joined by large walls.

It also helped that he wasn't stopped by anyone, though it would appear that the small girl that had summoned him had grown tired of trying to drag him and instead moved to block his path, only to find out he was more than happy to simply lift her and put her down out of his way, it was obvious that action infuriated her.

He finally found a clearing where he could test his ability to summon persona's without being overlooked by anyone outside of the small pink haired girl, then again she would probably be capable of telling him if using his persona's in public would be liable to get him executed.

Removing his headphones he immediately noticed that Louise was no longer yelling at him. Given that he was no longer listening to his music, he proceeded to turn off his mp3 player before turning to see the young girl he had been summoned by looking at him with one of the cutest expressions he had ever seen, with her pouting while her lips quivered and her eyes watered.

Still, he wasn't going to apologise, she had been treating him like crap when he hadn't even done anything so she deserved the treatment she received off him.

Turning around he held up his left hand before switching to his favoured persona, Orpheus Telos and with a single thought, tried to summon his power.

"Persona," he whispered quietly before feeling the swell of power that came with summoning a persona and the physical manifestation appearing behind him, thoroughly shocking Louise at the sudden presence of the large red and gold humanoid with yellow hair, a puppet like body and a large lyre attached to its back.

"W-w-what is that?!" the young mage asked in fear towards the person before her.

"Orpheus Telos," Minato said calmly before the being vanished from the physical plane, leaving the two alone as the sun began to set.

"T-that doesn't explain what it is!" she shouted once again.

"A persona," the blue haired saviour stated calmly as he turned to leave the courtyard he had tested his ability in.

"What's a persona?" came the expected response to his answer.

"It's a long story I can't be bothered telling you," he stated calmly as he switched back to Beelzebub, granting him immunity to all blunt force trauma, just in case the pinkette felt like trying to punish him again.

Now if Louise hadn't seen what he had just done, she would've yelled at him and demanded that he stop denying her, however now she knew that her familiar was most certainly not normal and given the sheer aura of power that radiated from that being he summoned, she was certain that the being he summoned was probably strong enough to take on a square class mage, so she decided that it would probably be a good idea to stop antagonising the darkly dressed boy she had summoned and accept that he wouldn't simply let her control him.

* * *

Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter since I know I enjoyed writing it.

Now I realize that the protagonist doesn't learn French in the game however I decided to make it so that he did in this version.

I am also aware that an evoker isn't actually required to summon a persona but simply makes it easier to do so without immense mental conditioning, however Minato hasn't undergone immense mental conditioning and as such his runes as a way to neutralize the concentration required to summon a persona.

I decided against making him the Gandálfr since in P3 and P3:FES, he is the only character capable of equiping any weapon, indicating a certain level of proficiency at armed combat that doesn't need to be augmented by runes.

I am also aware that he has not revealed his name yet, however that will be done during the next chapter.

Anyway, time to get the basic stats out of the way:

Arisato Minato:

Level: 99

Persona's: Orpheus Telos, Thanatos, Messiah, Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub, Asura, Byakko, Kohryu

Items: mp3 player

And that is all for now, so until next time...

Fenris out.


	2. Against The Flow

Alright, I'm back.

Anyway, let's get on with the story.

* * *

Tabitha was a small girl, being the only one in their year that was even shorter than Louise, however unlike Louise she was a quiet and distant individual that had a relatively good relationship with Kirche.

She possessed short, bright blue hair and wore a pair of red rimmed spectacles over her blue eyes while she held a large staff with a hook like curve at the top.

She was normally a rather emotionless individual, having gone through a large amount of trauma already, however right now she was displaying shock as she sat in her room, her eyes wide and her usual book nowhere to be seen.

And it was all because of what she had seen. She had been practicing flying on her newly summoned familiar, a bright blue rhyme dragon she named Sylphid, when she had seen Louise's familiar summon an entity, she refused to call it anything else because of the power it emitted, it almost felt like she was looking at a god when she laid her eyes on it.

The fact that Sylphid was absolutely terrified of the summoned entity didn't make things better, for a Rhyme dragon to be scared meant whatever was involved was truly dangerous.

Of course there was also another question she wanted the answer to, was that the only entity Louise's familiar could summon or were there more? If there were more then she didn't know what anyone would do if the familiar decided to turn on anyone.

With her thoughts running as they were, the young bluenette found that sleep was more distant than normal.

XXX XXX XXX

Louise didn't know what to do right now. She had been following her familiar ever since he revealed that 'persona' power he possessed and she was beginning to think he was lost.

They had scoured every last inch of the school, it was obvious that her familiar was searching for something though exactly what it was that he was searching for was up to debate since he had put those weird disks back over his ears and started ignoring her again, she really did have to ask him why he did that at some point.

The strangest part in her mind however was the fact that despite searching through the entire school, he never acted lost, as if he already knew where he was going, then again she didn't know just how ridiculously good his sense of direction was compared to a normal persons.

Then again right now all she really knew about him was that he was quiet, very difficult to intimidate, capable of summoning at least one incredibly powerful being and didn't put up with people trying to put him down, so all in all, she knew very little.

Thinking on it, she quickly realised that she didn't even know the name of her familiar, sure normally a mage would name their familiar themselves but given that hers was a human, it was highly likely that he already had a name.

She just hoped that he would listen to her question as she sped up to grab a hold of his sleeve which she promptly tugged on like a child tugs on their parents clothes, only to shrink back a little upon seeing his gaze turn to her, given that she'd started antagonising him when he first appeared, it was no surprise she was now very wary when dealing with him.

Seeing him take one of the strange disks off his ear, noting that it appeared to be making a weird noise now that she was close enough, she decided to ask him the question that had appeared in her mind.

"W-what is your name commoner?" Minato raised his eye at the slightly more respectful tone she used this time before giving his answer.

"Minato Arisato," he informed her with a bored tone as he proceeded to turn the corner and seeing a young blond boy flirting with a young brunette. He didn't bother paying attention, if the blond haired boy wanted to flirt then he was welcome to do so.

However just because he was prepared to ignore the boy, didn't mean the boy would ignore him and his 'master'.

"Well well, if it isn't Zero and her familiar, I heard that you put on quite the show earlier," the boy that looked like he was dressed for a Shakespearian play, with a frilly shirt, dark mantle and the fake rose he currently held in his hand.

"Shut up Guiche!" the young pinkette shouted in anger at the boys rather pathetic attempt at a taunt.

"And why should I listen to a failure that can't even control their own familiar?" the young boy asked her with obvious amusement in his tone, earning a red face off the young girl.

Then everyone blinked in confusion as Minato walked over to her and with minimal effort, lifted the volatile explosive and proceeded to walk away with a fuming pinkette between his hands.

"PUT ME DOWN! PUT ME DOWN!" she shouted at the blue haired persona user as he walked away from the boy that had been mocking her for her failure to control her familiar, it's not like he had a sentient familiar to deal with.

"No, if you want to trolls to stop, then you ignore them," he said calmly, only to hear another voice call out to him with anger lacing its tone.

"Halt right there you filthy commoner!" Guiche shouted upon hearing the ignorant commoner call him a troll, he was nowhere near big and ugly enough to warrant such a name, "how dare you call a noble a troll?!"

That made the Fool stop as his mind processed the fact that they wouldn't have the internet yet and as such, trolls would probably still mean large ugly things that hid under bridges.

"Sorry," the bluenette responded before continuing to walk away with the furious blond following him with every intent to make the commoner pay for his insult, it didn't help that the brunette that had been with him looked ready to murder him as well, "(sigh) if only Isako and Junpei were here, they'd understand."

"Huh? Who're Isako and Junpei?" Louise asked as she stopped squirming in his grip and looked at him, only for her eyes to widen upon seeing his eyes soften and his lips curl upwards in a smile.

"Friends," he muttered quietly before finding a certain blond haired mage standing in front of him in an attempt to stop him from reaching the stairs towards Louise's room, "please move."

"Not until you pay for your earlier insult," Guiche stated with anger still clear in his eyes, earning a shrug off the Japanese boy before finding a foot embedded in his groin.

Both Louise and the brunette could do nothing more than stare in shock and horror at the scene before them, to think that the zero's familiar would literally kick Guiche where it hurts the most and the worst part of it was that there was not a single hint of hesitation behind the offending foot.

"Lord Guiche!" the girl that had been with the boy cried out as she rushed to his position and proceeded to try and tend the boy that she had fallen for as he lay on the floor clutching his jewels while Minato simply walked over him and made his way up the stairs as if nothing had happened.

"Minato… what have you done?" the pink haired girl asked in horror as they arrived back at her room. Guiche was the fourth son of General Gramont and therefore politically powerful, crippling him could cause serious problems for the young Vallière in the long run.

"He was in the way," the teenaged SEES member stated bluntly as he walked over to the bed and before anything could be said, promptly dropped down on the soft mattress before instantly falling asleep, much to the pink haired girls disdain.

Seriously, how could someone fall asleep that quickly?

Taking a few calming breaths, the young girl decided to simply let him sleep there for the night, she would have to see one of the servants about getting a second bed in the room since it was obvious the boy would most certainly not sleep on the pile of hay.

So it was with a small sigh that she proceeded to strip off her clothes and put on a clear pink nightie before walking around to the other side of the bed and crawl under the covers, silently cursing the fact that she didn't have the same amount of space as usual.

XXX XXX XXX

The next morning was interesting as far as Minato was concerned, he woke up and immediately noticed that the girl that had summoned him was sleeping under the covers. Giving a mental shrug he simply got off the bed and without a moment's hesitation, proceeded to walk out of the room that he had been sleeping in.

Walking down the hall he noted that outside of the servants, he was obviously the only person that was up right now. Seriously, if this was Japan most people would have been up _before_ him, that is how it always was when he was at Gekkoukan High, it was always Yukari that knocked on his door to make sure he was ready for school, sure Junpei may have gotten up after him but that guy was the biggest slacker he had ever met and always asked him for the answer to the teachers spot quizzes.

Not that he minded, he gained quite the reputation for being smart because of that, though honestly, given the fact that he could keep up with a completely academic conversation with Mitsuru-senpai it was pretty obvious he was smart. Honestly the only reason he didn't appear particularly intelligent here was primarily due to a lack of information as opposed to actually stupidity.

It didn't take him long to arrive at the dining hall as it was being prepared by the servants, not that he would call them that, if anything he suspected that they were probably treated like slaves as opposed to servants if the attitudes these so called 'nobles' had displayed was anything to go by.

Of course his sudden appearance attracted the attention of the staff that were preparing for the nobles to arrive and that attention was not particularly good.

"Excuse me, who are you and what are you doing here?" a young woman with short black hair, wearing a stereotypical maid dress asked him in a cautious tone, earning a shrug off the blue haired familiar.

"Minato Arisato, when is breakfast?" he responded quietly, then again he rarely ever did anything loudly (except the odd time he decided to shout when summoning a persona, he still got a thrill whenever he shouted 'Orpheus!' while pointing an evoker at his head).

"That's a strange name Mr Arisato," she said with a smile before answering his question, "breakfast will be served in half an hour but only nobles are allowed to eat here."

"Thank you miss…?" he said, earning a smile off the girl.

"Siesta," she promptly responded earning a nod of acknowledgement from the blue haired boy before he proceeded to walk towards one of the tables in the room and sitting down, prompting every servant to look at him as if he was insane.

Sure he wasn't supposed to sit at a nobles table but if they had a problem with that… well Thanatos would be more than capable of getting them to back off.

Before any of the servants could say anything he had already put both his headphones on and powered up his mp3 player. He had to admit that he was very happy that Fūka had adjusted his mp3 to work during the Dark Hour and had even adjusted the battery to recharge itself by absorbing his strength (even if the drain was so miniscule that he couldn't even tell it was happening).

It didn't take the servants long to try and get him to leave the table, though he simply ignored their attempts at moving him, if he was right then they seemed more concerned over the fact that the nobles would try and punish him for his 'ignorance'.

However he wasn't scared of these people now that he knew he could use his persona, sure he would prefer if he had the omnipotent orb, armour of light and Lucifer's blade in his possession but even as he stood right now, he was still strong enough to give Ryōji a run for his money while he was Nyx's avatar. Sure he wouldn't be capable of winning but that doesn't change the fact that he would still put up one hell of a fight.

He continued to listen to his mp3 player as he sat at the table, until he was hit by a truly heavenly scent in the form of breakfast being brought to the table. He soon found that the feast looked just as good as it smelt, honestly he didn't think he had ever seen such a grand selection of food in his life… and this was just breakfast!

He allowed a small smile to tug at his lips as he proceeded to gather a meal for himself, causing the servants to look at him in shock at his blatant disregard for the standards that had been beaten into them their whole lives before he set the plate before him and said a quick 'Itadakimasu' upon which he started to eat at a calm pace.

Of course the servants couldn't stop themselves from shaking in fear upon seeing the headmaster enter the hall and look at the strangely dressed familiar eating at a table for nobles.

"Well young man, I hope you said your prayer to the founder before you started eating," the old man with a ridiculously long beard and long white hair said with a smile on his face.

He was regularly referred to as 'Old Osmond' by other nobles, however because he had lived for such a long time that he had long since lost the feeling of superiority that came with being of a higher station than others due to the number of times he had met people that surpass his expectations of what a commoner should be capable of.

So he didn't care that one was sitting at a table that was technically for nobles only, it was still a table and the food was still food so why shouldn't someone be allowed to sit there and eat? Well, he could understand if they were a criminal or enemy but that was a completely different situation altogether.

However what did begin to draw his ire was that the strange boy was ignoring him. Sure he would've understood such an act if he was being degrading or cruel, at least then the boy would have a perfectly valid excuse for ignoring him, however he was being rather pleasant all things considered so the boy could at least make an effort to be cordial.

He was quickly surprised upon seeing a young maid quickly move over to try and gain the boys attention with an obvious amount of panic clear on her face as she proceeded to grab him and start trying to convince the boy to respond.

That was when things really got interesting for the old mage as the boy removed those strange disks from his ears and proceeded to ask a very simple question.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" the tone of his voice indicated that he wasn't making fun of the girl, especially after she told him that he had ignored the headmaster and his face took on an expression of minor shock, honestly if it wasn't for his immense experience the aged wind mage wouldn't have noticed it but it most certainly was there, "ah… kuso."

Confusion spread throughout the entire hall upon hearing the unusual word he spoke, after all, they had never heard anything close to Japanese before.

Before anything else could be said more people began to file into the hall, showing open shock at the presence of a familiar at the table, however the mere fact that he headmaster was already there and the dark haired boy was still eating at a nobles table made them stall any outbursts they may have had.

"As I was saying, I hope you gave your prayer to Brimir," the old wizard said calmly as everyone that had arrived watched attentively.

"What's a Brimir?" Minato's perfectly innocent question was met by a public outcry and a look of complete disbelief on the face of the headmaster.

"How can you not know who Brimir is?" Osmond asked in shock, earning a shrug off the young boy that had been summoned the previous day.

"The last time I checked, there was only one moon where I came from and it only appeared at night," the blue haired boy said before putting more food in his maw.

Immediately Old Osmond understood what was happening, he had already had encounters with others not of their world and the possibility of summoning a familiar that appeared to be human but actually came from a different world altogether was nowhere near non-existent.

"I see… well Brimir was a great man that died over six thousand years ago," the oldest in the room started as he walked closer to the boy.

"And what sort of atrocities did he cause?" the dark haired boy asked bluntly, earning shouts of outrage at the mere concept of the centre figure of their religion doing anything wrong.

"I don't know why you think he did anything atrocious," the square class wind mage stated calmly, earning a blank look from the younger boy that practically screamed 'are you serious?'

"There's a saying where I come from, 'great and good are seldom the same man'," the sheer lack of emotion upon saying such a thing made the aged mage blink a couple of times.

"Well Brimir was both a great and good man, that I can assure you," the headmaster said in a cheery tone.

"No… you can't," and once again the hall was in near pandemonium, "it's possible that you've grown up to believe what he did was right even if it was wrong, that's why unless you can give me historical texts from that time period, I won't accept that he really was a good person."

That was the moment that a familiar voice yelled out through the crowd, not that Minato cared, he was still eating and this food was really good.

"FAMILIAR!" the crowd parted as a seething pinkette stormed forward, sure she was scared witless of her familiar after seeing his previous display the night before, however she did have a reputation to maintain and she had to at the very least ensure the other nobles that she wasn't condoning his actions.

"What do you want gaki?" once again his slip of the tongue wrought confusion amongst the people present, none more so than the very girl he was addressing.

"Huh? What the hell does gaki mean?" she asked with a now clearly confused expression on her face.

"Ano… it means brat," he muttered just loud enough for others to hear, earning a sudden reddening of his summoner's face as she registered what he had just called her.

Without any hesitation she reached for her wand, only to snarl in anger upon realising that he _still_ hadn't given it back to her. Of course that simply caused her to storm up to the persona user and literally punch him in the face… only for grasp her hand in pain as the young boy completely ignored her strike (Beelzebub really was working perfectly against her).

"Ow, ow, ow," came her rather feeble moan upon feeling the unmovable object directly for the first time, "what the hell is your skin made of you idiot?"

"Primarily carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, though there are a few extra elements mixed in," the Japanese boy stated blandly, thoroughly confusing everyone present.

"Uh… what are you talking about?" a random student asked with raised eyebrows, earning a shrug off the distant boy.

"Your world is founded on the principal of magic, mine is founded on the principal of science," the teenager that was still listening to his music stated in his usual blank tone, "I'd harbour a guess that you have five elements, four of which are fire, water, air and earth, right?"

"That is correct, the fifth element is the legendary void element that only Brimir himself possessed," Minato really didn't know what to think of the sheer amount of pride in the old man's voice as he said that, it was almost as if he was claiming to have it himself from the way he talked about it.

"I see… anyway, where I come from there were one hundred and fourteen elements officially recognised as existing," the blue haired boy explained in his usual drawl, earning snorts of amusement from many of the students, "however many of the later ones are radioactive and unable to survive outside of a controlled environment."

"Your people are obviously stupid then," Louise stated in a matter of fact manner, earning another shrug off Minato.

"They don't have magic but are still capable of flying to the other side of the world in less than eight hours, are capable of exploring the bottom of the ocean and have even put a man on the moon… all of this was done by the very system that gave us so many elements, science," he idly noted that out of everyone present, the maid named Siesta seemed to be the most shocked by his words, however what caught his attention was the recognition in her eyes, as if she had already heard of some of these things herself.

"LIAR! That sort of stuff is impossible even with magic, so don't go around making stupid remarks like that!" the second shortest second year claimed angrily.

"I wasn't lying but I can't make you believe me if you don't want to," and with that the dark clothed boy simply continued to stuff his mouth.

"S-shut up! And get away from the table! It is for nobles only!" the volatile pinkette shouted at him, earning a shrug from the boy as he continued to eat.

"I know… and I don't care," the silence that reigned after his announcement that shocked everyone in the room to the core.

"Well then perhaps you need a lesson on exactly why nobles are given special privileges over commoners like you," came a voice that made many girls swoon (though there were notable exceptions).

"Who are you?" the blue haired boy asked, earning a trio of splutters from the boy, Louise and a certain brunette that wasn't far from the first. Honestly he knew exactly who this person was, however he had decided to see how the boy dealt with being trolled.

"H-how can you forget Guiche?! You kicked him in the freaking balls last night!" Louise shouted in disbelief earning several gasps of shock from around the room at the mere thought of a commoner assaulting a noble.

"Oh, is that who he is, sorry, he's just so plain I forgot who he was," the former SEES member stated bluntly, earning several shocked looks from around the room.

"P-p-p-plain? H-h-h-HOW DARE YOU! A MERE COMMONER CALLING ME PLAIN!" the blond haired Romeo shouted in outrage at the persona users claim.

'_Yeah, he's easy to troll,'_ the blue haired boy thought to himself, the simple fact that he didn't have to worry about social links anymore meant that he didn't have to try and be nice to these people, he already possessed the power of the universe Arcana and would use it again when he returned to his own world.

"That is it! I challenge you to a duel!" the frilly shirt boy demanded, earning a shrug of Minato's shoulders and a look of shock off every other student and even a few members of staff.

"That is not allowed Guiche, duels are prohibited within the academy," Professor Colbert stated seriously, earning a minor glare off the blond boy.

"No, duels between nobles are prohibited, that plebeian is most certainly not a noble," despite how much he wanted to deny it, Colbert couldn't actually say anything more, Guiche was correct in his statement and therefore there was nothing he could do to protect the blue haired boy from a nobles wrath… and to think he wanted to learn about this so called 'science'.

"No Guiche, don't do this!" Louise tried to beg the taller boy who simply pushed her to the side and pointed his wand at the still eating form of Minato.

"Step aside, this is a duel of honour, I will not allow a commoner spit all over our customs like that," the Shakespearian styled boy exclaimed, earning several sighs of admiration from girls within the crowd, "so do you accept familiar?"

"After breakfast," the Japanese boy said calmly, earning a few blinks from the blond before he proceeded to make his way towards the second year table where the blue haired boy was sitting before collecting his own breakfast.

As if a water gate had been opened, everyone else proceeded to take a seat within the hall, though they were still confused about why the headmaster hadn't thrown the familiar outside when he was obviously not allowed to eat at the table.

Minato found himself rolling his eyes upon hearing the schools prayer to that Brimir guy, it was obvious that they worshiped him _as_ a god despite their knowledge that he was in fact a human and therefore not an actual deity.

Not long after the prayer was finished, a small voice made itself known to him from next to him.

"Please, don't kill Guiche," he instantly noted the obvious current of fear that lay under the tone, making him look to his side to see an apathetic girl with glasses and neck length blue hair.

"I don't intend to," came his short response, earning a nod from the young girl before she returned to her book, while both Louise and a significantly taller woman with red hair and a massive chest stared at her with wide eyes.

"What are you talking about Tabitha? Surely you don't think a commoner can beat a noble?" the red head asked in shock, earning a blank stare off the shortest girl.

"Familiar is very powerful," the bespectacled girl muttered quietly, earning a look off Minato.

"You saw me last night didn't you?" the dark blue haired boy asked calmly, earning a nod off the girl, "where were you?"

"Up," came Tabitha's ever so eloquent response, earning a nod of acceptance from the persona user.

After that short conversation, silence reigned between the four that had gathered there, with the redhead and Louise simply sharing looks that pretty much said 'what the hell?', honestly they were certain that Louise's familiar was related to Tabitha in some way, their similar demeanours and hair colour seemed too specific to be mere coincidence, of course they were wrong but that didn't change the fact that they thought that was the case.

"Well Mr Familiar," the redhead started only to be cut off by the blue haired boy.

"Minato," Kirche could only blink a few times in confusion, "my name is Minato, not familiar."

"I see, that's a strange name, I'm Kirche Augusta Frederica von Anhalt Zerbst ," the young woman informed him, earning a blank look off the boy.

"Does everyone in this world have such long and convoluted names?" his question nearly made everyone that heard him face vault at the mere thought that someone would question their names like that, "I'll take your reaction as a yes."

"Well, I guess you have the right to ask strange questions like that, so how about answering some of mine?" the red head asked as she pushed her arms under her breasts, pushing them up in an attempt to fluster the dark haired boy.

"Zerbst! Stop trying to seduce my familiar!" the young pink haired girl shouted at the taller girl, earning a smirk off her 'enemy'.

"And why shouldn't I? As a Zerbst I'm supposed to steal a Vallière's things," before Louise could make a retort, the seductress found a hand bopping her on the head courtesy of the very person they were talking about.

"I'm a person, not a thing," Minato's statement made the young fire mage wince slightly at the lack of emotion in his tone, it was neither warm nor cold, it was simply said in such a way that it was obvious he held no feelings, either positive or negative, towards her, he simply saw her as being there and she found such a possibility unbelievable.

"I'm sorry, I was simply trying to make Louise understand why I wouldn't listen to her," the attractive young woman said as softly as she could, however once again she found the boy unaffected by her attempts at manipulating him.

"You only want me to get at the gaki, I won't be a tool to be used like that," his statement made all three of the girls listening to him blink a few times, none of them were used to someone turning down Kirche.

"Really, well I'm surprised you would miss out on a chance to date a woman like myself," she said with a small smirk, that was quickly wiped off her face at his next statement.

"Back home I dated eight women in one year… at the same time," those words drew the attention of nearly everyone at the table, though none more than Guiche, sure he was double dating but octuple dating was something he could only dream of.

"Liar! How the hell could you possibly date eight girls at the same time?!" Louise asked him angrily, earning a blank stare off the dark haired boy.

"It's really, really hard," he muttered quietly, though everyone heard him.

"Well, I guess we're more alike than you might think," Kirche said with a smirk, earning a blank stare off the teenaged boy.

"No, we're not," he stated without any hesitation, "you try to seduce men, I never tried to seduce a woman."

Minato's words made many wonder what sort of story he was going to weave, that he was just so naturally charming that girls fell for him left and right?

"Really, then why did you end up dating so many girls huh?" the red head asked mischievously, earning another blank stare off the boy.

"They were all friends, I just got to know them and they fell for me," he informed her calmly, earning another grin, "and I was too much of a coward to say no."

That last statement made everyone blink several times in confusion, they couldn't see why he would need to be brave to say no.

"And why did saying yes make you a coward?" Guiche asked, from afar, his previous anger towards the commoner temporarily displaced by a curiosity concerning the boys history.

"Because I was too scared of disappointing them by saying no," he said while staring at his food and actually earning a few looks of pity from around the table.

"Well then, are you finished your breakfast commoner?" the blond boy asked seriously in an attempt to become the centre of attention again, earning a nod off the dark haired boy who immediately rose from his seat, "then meet me at the Vestri court for our duel."

With a simple shrug Minato proceeded to ask a very simple question that made everyone face vault.

"Which one is that? I can't read your language," immediately the youngest son of General Gramont straightened his posture and gave a smug look as he proceeded to give a simple order to the closest maid at that point in time, surprisingly Siesta.

"You maid, take my opponent to the Vestri Court I shall be waiting," he didn't care that he could easily just take the boy there himself, as far as he was concerned that was the sort of thing servants were for.

Because of this situation, the hall was quickly emptied as students left to see just how badly Guiche would beat this arrogant commoner, completely unaware of just what he was going up against.

"Well, I'll be looking forward to seeing you in action Minato, if you really are as strong as Tabitha believes, then please try to put on a good show, see ya," Kirche said before walking out of the hall with Tabitha walking not far behind her.

"I can't believe you're doing this," Louise muttered quietly, earning a shrug off her familiar who simply walked over to the dark haired maid who looked at him in shock.

"M-Mr Arisato, please stop this, you can't fight a noble!" she said with fear drenching her voice, she really didn't like to see nobles punish anyone and the fact that she would have to take the boy there mean she would probably end up with a front row seat to the beating.

"Ano, I won't beat him too bad," the blue haired boy said calmly, earning a strange look off the young maid.

"Just take the idiot to the Vestri court and make sure there's a water mage to fix Guiche when it's over, I'm staying out of this," the young pink haired girl said as she proceeded to collect more food for her breakfast.

"I… I see… (sigh) please follow me," and with that, the dark haired girl proceeded to lead the newcomer to the site of his duel.

* * *

Well I hope you liked this chapter.

Just to make something clear here, I forgot to mention in the authors note of the last chapter that earth magic will be considered physical in terms of resistances, eg. a golem's punch would be strike damage, an earth spear would be pierce damage and a sword made of earth magic would be slash damage.

Anyway, that is all for now so until next time...

Fenris out!


	3. The Death Arcana

Sorry for the delay, I've had computer issues and my grandfather is seriously sick so I've not been able to focus on being creative recently (combine that with doing a solo fmc playthrough of P3P and my time has been occupied).

Let's just get on with the show m'kay?

* * *

Minato really couldn't care less about this so called duel, however he was pretty sure that beating the crap out of Guiche in a duel would make the other nobles shut their mouths for a change.

He could honestly say that right now there were only three nobles he knew that he considered worth his time, Professor Colbert, the headmaster and that Tabitha girl. Colbert seemed to be a reasonable person, the headmaster seemed to be far less formal than most of the others and Tabitha was simply quiet and didn't have the arrogance that seemed to define the rest of the students.

The rest were all just a bunch of snobbish twits.

It was obvious to him that Siesta was seriously concerned about him, however he didn't care, he knew that this blond ponce wasn't going to come close to any of the arcana shadows, let alone be strong enough to beat him.

He supposed it was evidence of his combat experience that he was capable of walking to this fight without his heart even beating one beat a minute faster than normal, he really didn't find anything about this so called 'duel' concerning.

Arriving at the designated location he immediately noted that the blond was waiting for him, though the thought of continuing to troll the boy made him hide that fact.

"So which one of you is my opponent again?" Minato asked with a blank expression, earning an indignant splutter off Guiche and several snickers off the crowd.

"I AM YOU BUFFOON!" the dot class earth mage shouted angrily, earning an 'ah' of acknowledgement from the blue haired boy.

"Sorry, didn't recognise you," the blue haired Gekkoukan Student stated bluntly, earning a look of aggravation from the blond boy and several snickers from the crowd that had gathered, apparently he wasn't the only one that was enjoying the blonds reactions.

"Very well then you imbecile, I was going to show you a minor mercy by giving you a weapon but now… now you have crossed the line and will be utterly humiliated for your insolence," Guiche stated quietly, though he was still loud enough to hear.

"What are the rules?" Minato asked in response, earning a sinister glare off the young boy.

"We will fight until one of us cannot continue," the obvious shock that spread though the crowd made Minato shrug at the fact that apparently this was an unusual condition for a duel in this world.

"Fine by me," sure he wanted to ask the rose wielding idiot if he was sure he wanted that condition but he decided against it, all that would happen would be that he would be called a coward and nothing would change.

Of course his lack of hesitation in his answer and the complete lack of concern in his eyes made everyone take two, normally someone would at least question such a condition however this complete stranger simply accepted it.

"Very well then… let the punishment begin," and with that the blond waved his wand once, scattering six petals to the ground, upon which a series of humanoid entities made of bronze and wielding spears and swords emerged in a bright light, though it wasn't bright enough to make Minato look away, "meet my Valkyries, the golems that will destroy you today!"

"Hn," once again everyone found themselves unnerved at the blue haired boys apathy towards the duel, even Old Osmond was finding this boy from another world to be most unsettling.

Honestly there were only three people that felt anything other than discomfort concerning the blue haired boy, Tabitha was standing at the front of the crowd in the hope of seeing if she could determine anything about the boy, Kirche was simply watching in curiosity as she wondered if this newcomer really was as strong as Tabitha believed and Siesta was trying to leave the area in order to avoid witnessing the noble destroy the strange commoner… though she wasn't having much luck at the moment.

"Valkyries… Charge!" Guiche ordered his golems forward and without a seconds hesitation, they sped forwards at impressive speeds, almost catching the modern high schooler off guard… keyword being almost.

A year of fighting shadows with ridiculous physical appearances and almost unreadable attacks had given all of SEES a sort of sixth sense that helped them get through difficult battles while taking only minimal damage and that natural dodging ability readily applied itself here.

The crowd was treated a sight that they didn't expect, to think that the familiar was capable of dodging every strike sent at him with almost inhuman ease despite being outnumbered six to one.

What really made it easy for him was that the armour like creations were being directed by the blond boy and as such weren't acting as a cohesive unit since Guiche was unable to multitask to the extent required to move all of them simultaneously.

"Wow… this guy really is pretty good," Kirche muttered quietly as she watched Guiche's Valkyrie's fail in their attempts to hit the blue haired boy.

"Not his true strength," Tabitha stated at her usual volume which while quiet was still loud enough to draw the attention of the dark haired maid that wasn't far away.

"What do you mean by that?" the red head asked with obvious confusion in her voice at her friends statement.

"True strength is… terrifying," the bespectacled girl stated as she remembered the feeling of raw power that poured off that entity the boy had summoned.

Just as Kirche was about to make another statement, her concentration was cut off by a scene that she was certain she would remember for the rest of her life, as with a single fluid motion, the other worlder proceeded to disarm one of the Valkyries of their spear and use it to knock the rest away from him before resting the polearm on his shoulders and frown.

"W-what? How?" the rose wand user asked in disbelief at the sight of one of his golems being disarmed so easily.

"Ken-kun would be disappointed," the persona user muttered quietly, though his voice travelled far in the silence that was created by his action.

"Ken-kun?" a random student said questioningly, earning a small chuckle from the blue haired boy.

"A kid I knew, he fought with spears, this piece of crap would disappoint him," Minato stated before throwing the bronze spear away and looking at his opponent who still looked shocked at this 'commoners' display of skill, "let's finish this."

That was when the entire crowd learned that they should never piss off the blue haired boy as his runes transformed before their eyes taking on the form of 'XIII' an action that surprised everyone that witnessed it.

The real kicker though was the sudden swell of light blue coloured energy that surrounded the high schooler before a being that would forever be etched into their nightmares appeared behind him.

It was a tall, humanoid figure dressed in black with long white gloves and boots, with a golden buckle held up what seemed to be a slitted, thigh high skirt. It head was covered in a metallic, almost beak like armour with two pitch black holes that looked like eyes and a hinge located at the jaw. In its hand was a massive, hiltless, single edged sword with serrations near the handle while a black sheathe with a golden tip was strapped to the beings waist. The part that truly terrified people however was the cape it wore, held up by a series of chains was a series of coffins decorated by a figure holding a sword over their body, each one simply floating behind the being as it stared at the now paralysed blond.

"Blondie, meet Thanatos, the Greek god of death," Arisato stated calmly as he stared at his opponent who was now sitting on the grass with a small puddle forming beneath him at the sheer presence that had appeared before him (not that he was the only one).

Out of everyone there, the only person that thought of anything outside of absolute fear at the presence before them was Tabitha who was more focused on the terrified fact that the familiar could summon multiple entities… and one of them was a death god! She knew from the presence it was emitting that it wasn't even as strong as the first one she saw him summon, though the aura was definitely more terrifying in its nature.

The teachers couldn't bring themselves to look away from the monstrosity before them despite knowing that Guiche needed help. Eventually though, Professor Colbert managed to snap himself out of his stupor and try to intervene.

"Stop the duel now!" the balding man demanded earning a cold stare off the blue haired familiar.

"Why? my opponent himself stated that this fight would continue until one of us was unable to continue, I assumed he meant until one of us was broken, beat and scarred," the complete lack of emotion in the blue haired boys voice made everyone in the area shiver as they watched the dark entity hover in the air before Minato once again turned to Guiche, "crush him."

Immediately the persona shot forward and with a single hand, proceeded to grip the now crying blond before lifting him into the air and smashing him back down, making the noble cough up blood at the impact before the action was repeated with the only sounds in the clearing being the brutal hammering of the blond, his pain filled cries and the ragged, bestial breathing of the persona as it proceeded to mercilessly crush the foe.

Honestly Minato was enjoying the image his was painting for the spectators, he knew that the persona wasn't actually Thanatos and wasn't anywhere near the strength of an actual god (Nyx had proven to him just how powerful god actually were), however the spectators didn't know that and as long as he didn't let it out that his persona's were literally a physical manifestation of his mind , he would be capable of conning this world into believing he could command gods to do his bidding.

How fun.

"Stop," he commanded as he made his persona look at him before letting the now bloody and beaten blond fall to the floor before shimmering out of existence.

As soon as the 'god' had vanished, Minato's ears were assaulted by two loud shrieks of 'Lord Guiche!' as two girls rushed up to the thoroughly humiliated blond to see if he was alright.

"Guiche! Are you alright? Answer me!" another blond, this one a girl possessing a pair of spiral like bangs framing her face shouted with worry clear in her voice as the brunette Minato had seen the boy with tried to get to the downed boy.

He decided to ignore the fight that started to break out between the two girls as a water mage proceeded to heal the blood covered noble, it was pretty obvious to him that Guiche was double dating if their actions were anything to go by and honestly, he didn't care if the boy was.

He did find it amusing how the crowd parted as he walked towards them, ready to leave him alone after witnessing his previous display.

"W-what was that?" was the general consensus amongst everyone that had witnessed the situation, though the question itself was voiced by a certain redhead.

"Scary," was the only word to leave the shortest of the groups mouth as she watched the other blue haired person leave with those strange disks back over his ears.

"I know that, I meant what was it?" Kirche responded with a hint of annoyance in her tone as she also watched the strange 'commoner' leave without a care in the world.

"H-he said it was a g-god," Siesta said from not far away as the crowd began to mutter in fear about the sheer aura that Minato's persona released.

"With an aura like that I wouldn't be surprised," a grim faced Professor Colbert stated as he walked towards the maid, "anyway, could you please find the young man that did this and inform him that Old Osmond wishes to speak with him?"

"W-w-what? W-why me?" the dark haired girl asked with fear obvious on her face.

"The reason is twofold, one, he seems to be rather cordial with you and two, the teachers and students all need to go to class," the balding professor stated with a sympathetic expression adorning his face.

"Well, except us second years but I don't think I'll be going near him from now on," the young Germanian said without hesitation before blinking a few times at the fact that Tabitha was walking away from the group, going in roughly the same direction as the other blue haired individual, "hey Tabitha, why are you going that way? The familiar went that way."

"Minato's powerful, not evil," the bespectacled girl stated bluntly, earning a few disbelieving stares off the others that were there.

"Didn't you see what he did to Guiche? That was just plain cruelty!" the redhead asked in shock at her friends statement.

"Guiche set the conditions, Minato fulfilled them," the shortest in the class responded without hesitation as she continued to walk towards the dining hall, deciding that that was the most probable place to find the boy that had made Guiche look inept before he even used his summon.

"But he didn't need to take it that far," the large chested girl said in an attempt to make the shorter girl rethink the situation.

"Message," the bespectacled girl stated calmly, making her taller friend blink a couple of times.

"What do you mean by that?" this time it was Siesta that decided to voice the question only to jump a little at the fact that it was one of the professors that decided to answer her question.

"She means he was giving everyone a message, most likely 'if you pick a fight with me, you will regret it'," Colbert stated seriously and despite the fear he currently held for the young bluenette, he couldn't stop himself from acknowledging that Tabitha was correct, so far the young boy didn't seem particularly aggressive or domineering, if anything he seemed more like a kindred spirit of Tabitha.

He was also certain that the shortest girl of the second years realised that he was like her and that was why she decided to interact with him.

"Professor Colbert, do you really think it's safe for Tabitha to be near him?" Kirche asked the balding fire mage, who simply gave a soft smile before giving his honest opinion.

"Personally, I believe he is safe… very powerful and intimidating after you've seen his power but you yourself spoke with him this morning and from what I saw, the worst he did was bop you on the head," the spectacled teacher said before turning his back on the young woman "now if you'll excuse me, I have some work that I need to do."

And with that the robed mage left the younger girls alone, resulting in the duo looking at each other and blinking a few times before running off after the two blue haired teens.

XXX XXX XXX

Louise couldn't stop herself from staring at her familiar… seriously, how the hell could he fit all that food in his stomach? Not even Malicorne could eat _half_ of what she'd seen this blue haired teen put away so far today.

"Dammit familiar! How can you keep eating?!" the pink haired girl asked angrily as she watched him put away another full English breakfast (not that they called it that there). Once again she found him not reacting to her words, however it was with a few deep breaths that she decided to see if she was right about a certain theory she had.

Walking over towards the boy, she quickly grabbed one of the disks and removed it from his ear, noting that the circular object seemed to be vibrating slightly in her hand.

"Huh? Do you want something pinkie?" he asked upon noticing that she had removed one of his headphones.

"I asked you how you can eat so much," she restated while silently fuming at the fact that he didn't even bother trying to call her anything even remotely respectful.

"Fast metabolism," the response once again made the second shortest second year blink in confusion courtesy of not understanding what he meant.

"What's a metabolism?" the young explosion creating mage asked with confusion in her voice.

"A series of chemical processes that extract energy from food and make it usable by the body," the dark haired boy stated blankly, earning a blank stare off the girl that had summoned him the previous day.

"Uh… I have no idea what you're talking about," the pink haired girl responded after a few seconds of thinking.

"Do you have alchemy in this world?" Minato's question was rather simple and instantly the pinkette perked up with a small smile on her face.

"Of course we do, it is the basics behind creating potions after all," she informed him with pride clear in her voice.

"Alchemy takes advantage of chemical reactions to transform the ingredients into the potion, though chemical reactions are involved whenever one material is changed into another without the aid of magic," the blue haired boy explained to the slightly younger girl.

"So let me get this straight, you are saying that we are alive _because_ of alchemy?" Louise asked seriously, earning a nod of acknowledgement from the Japanese boy, "well that's a weird way of looking at things."

"It's scientifically proven," the blue haired boy stated calmly before noting that three new arrivals had entered the dining hall.

He wasn't surprised to see the apprehension in Kirche and Siesta's eyes upon seeing him, they had just seen him use Thanatos after all, even Yukari had been wary of that particular persona even after being saved from the Magician by death itself taking the exact same form.

Then again the mere presence of a persona of the death Arcana was never particularly pleasant, well at least according to the people he had asked since he couldn't feel anything special about their aura but that was probably due to how long he was a prison for death itself desensitising him to such an entity.

He was slightly surprised to see that Tabitha didn't seem even remotely concerned about being near him, instead simply walking up to the table with her head in a book.

"Headmaster wants you," she muttered quietly before proceeding to walk away without another word.

"Where is he?" Minato asked calmly, making the light blue haired girl stop for a few seconds before turning to face him.

"His office," the shortest of the group stated blankly earning a nod of acceptance from the boy.

"Where's that?"

"Up."

"Arigato Tabitha-san," instantly the four girls in the room gained looks of confusion at the language they had only ever heard him speak before, that is until the blue haired boy gained a look of realisation on his face and offered an apology, "sumimasen, I mean, sorry, Arigato just means thank you in my language."

"And what does san mean?" Louise asked hoping that her familiar wasn't saying anything inappropriate.

"In that context, I was saying Miss Tabitha, though that honorific is gender neutral," he explained at his usual volume (which wasn't very loud at all).

"Honorific? Gender neutral?" was the general consensus though it was Kirche that voiced the questions.

"Honorific's are like titles but more varied and said after the person's name, some are formal and others are casual, san is relatively formal. Gender neutral means it can be used for both men and women," the dark haired youth stated calmly earning questioning looks from the girls who didn't understand how something like that could be gender neutral, "now if you'll excuse me, I have to see the headmaster."

"Hold on, do you even have any idea where you're going?" Louise asked the boy with her usual hostility, earning a shrug in response.

"If my guess is right, it's at those stairs you refused to let me go up yesterday," he stated with no emotions noticeable through his tone, earning a surprised look off the girl that had brought him there.

"W-well it is but can you even remember where they are?" the pinkette asked him, earning a blank stare off the boy that quickly unnerved her.

"Rule three, don't question my sense of direction," he informed her seriously, earning several blinks off the gathered group before the boy proceeded to leave the hall on his way to see the headmaster.

"Do you think he'll find it alright?" Siesta asked quietly, earning a snort off the second shortest of the group.

"Who cares, if he gets lost it's his own fault," Louise stated indignantly before offering a glare to Kirche, "now if you'll excuse me, I'd rather not spend any more time around that harlot."

"Really zero, just because you have a size zero chest and I don't doesn't make me a harlot," the attractive redhead stated in a matter of fact tone, making Louise's face flare bright red.

"No but sleeping with every boy in the academy does!" the volatile loli practically shouted.

"I see your point, still as they say back in Germania 'if you've got it, flaunt it'," the tanned woman stated with a small smirk gracing her lips, "and I sure have got it, unlike a certain Vallière I know."

"S-shut up Zerbst!" the second shortest shouted before storming off in a rage, her already negative mood made fouler by the redheads taunting.

Upon witnessing the pinkette leave, Siesta proceeded to also exit the dining hall, leaving Kirche and Tabitha alone in the extravagant room.

"Hey Tabitha, do you really think that Familiar is going to just sit back and do nothing when he has power like that?" the tallest of the year asked the shortest with an unusually gloom expression.

"No," came the curt reply from the young girl reading a book, earning a grimace from the redhead.

"So even you think he'll use his power to conquer the world," the forlorn expression that adorned the tanned woman's face was not one that many people got to witness but Tabitha was one of those few people that Kirche trusted unconditionally and as such, wouldn't hide her true thoughts when the two were alone.

"No," immediately the Germanian lifted her head to stare at the young girl with wide eyes at what she believed to be contradictory answers.

"What do you mean by that?" sure Kirche wasn't exactly stupid, however one thing all the teachers acknowledged was that her talent in magic was focused on the practical aspect as opposed to the theoretical aspect, another trait that made her a near polar opposite of Louise.

"Apathetic not aggressive, independent not oppressive," the light blue haired girl stated calmly as she turned a page in her book, earning a blank look off her taller friend.

"And that means what for us?"

"Ruling the world… not his thing," that sentence made sense to the long haired girl who simply put her mouth in an 'O' shape before proceeding to ask her next question.

"So what do you think he'll do here?" the ample chested girl asked with a hint of curiosity in her tone.

"Find a way home."

XXX XXX XXX

Old Osmond really didn't know what to think right now as he sat behind his desk looking at the boy that had apparently summoned a god. His secretary was busy with other matters and had failed to attend the… 'duel', (if one could call it that) and as such would be of no assistance in this situation whether she was there or not.

He felt chills run down his spine at the vacant look the bluenette was giving him, offering no expression that let him gauge the boys thoughts right now and it was beginning to get to him. How could a teenager with such power be so… he supposed the word that made the most sense to him was empty.

"You wanted to see me," Minato stated bluntly, he momentarily thought that it may be possible that he would come off in a manner similar to how Aigis did back when she had first joined SEES but he quickly pushed that thought out of his head.

"Ah yes, I just wanted to confirm a few things with you that's all," the old man informed him with an underlying sense of caution in his tone.

The room was once again filled with silence as the blue haired persona user continued to give the aged mage a blank stare that continued to unnerve him.

"Was that really a god of death?" Osmond asked seriously, earning a nod off the teen, "how did you tame it?"

"Secret," that single word made the bearded fella frown in disappointment at the blue haired boys decision to not disclose such a secret and he was also convinced that Louise probably wouldn't be capable of extracting it from him.

"(sigh) well then, I suppose I should let you know that the worst of Guiche's injuries have been dealt with and he is expected to make a full recovery," Osmond informed the Japanese boy who simply gave him a blank look in response.

"Who's Guiche?" Minato asked calmly. He had already decided that he wouldn't let anyone know that he did in fact remember the boy, because then no one could give the game away before he grew bored of it.

"The boy you nearly killed in a duel," the irritation was visible on the old headmasters' face, something that the young boy couldn't stop himself from mentally celebrating, the thought that he could get to someone as old, wise and all around pleasant as the headmaster to display irritation was something he could find pride in.

"Oh, him," he muttered quietly enough to still be heard by the headmaster who simply gave a sigh of frustration at the blue haired boys lack of concern.

"Do you realise that your actions could create a political situation between the Vallières and Gramonts," the completely blank look that appeared on the dark haired teens face told the old mage that the boy either didn't understand what was being said or simply didn't care, honestly either was a distinct possibility given what he'd seen of the boy thus far.

"Why should I care? The only reason that girl succeeded in making me a familiar is because I took pity on her," Minato stated bluntly, earning a shocked expression off the mage, "she owes me for not getting her thrown out of this school, not the other way around."

It was that moment that Old Osmond finally understood this boys attitude, he didn't care that they were nobles and he was a familiar, the way he saw it, Louise was a debter and he was the crediter that she would have to pay off.

"Beyond that, it was that boy that made the challenge and set the conditions, I merely fulfilled them," the persona user stated calmly earned another sigh off the aged magic user.

"I am aware of that and that is the only reason the Gramonts' won't be able to do anything to the Vallières'," the white haired man indicated seriously, earning a shrug off the boy.

"Then why bother telling me? I have no intention of starting a fight with anyone here, so as long as no one challenges me, they'll be fine," the blue haired boy informed the old man calmly, "now if that's everything, I have something I wish to do."

"There is one more thing," Osmond could just barely hear the sigh of annoyance that escaped the blonds lips upon that statement, "is that the only thing you can summon?"

"No," that one word made the old mages head throb at the mere idea that this stranger had more up his sleeve, "Thanatos was one of my weaker summons."

The blue haired boy nearly smirked upon seeing the aged mages eyes widen at the mere thought of Thanatos being one of his weaker persona's, then again he rarely used anything outside of Helel back when he was traversing the Monad block… Armageddon and Victory Cry was easily the most overpowered combination of abilities he had ever discovered.

He briefly pondered showing off that skill at some point, then again, completely obliterating an area and wiping out all life there probably wouldn't be appreciated.

Besides he'd already put the fear of god into them, doing more would probably make things harder than necessary for him… or cause them to worship him, that thought made him shiver, he had already experience how fanatical people could be with the cult that wished for the fall… and to a lesser extent was Chihiro's devotion to him, the sheer fact that she had nearly taken Mitsuru's head off at the mere mention of being in the same room alone with him was not something he expected from the chronically shy treasurer… and that was before he had actually started hanging out with the redhead!

"One of your weaker summons?" the sheer hesitation in the headmasters voice at the possibility that a _god_ was one of his weakest weapons was clear to him as he simply stared at the significantly older man.

"Yes. Can I go now?" the sheer boredom that appeared to permeate his tone was clear to anyone that heard him, then again he was getting pretty bored with this place already, then again he _was_ naturally a very social person, his wildcard ability was simply a representation of that, or rather, his ability to mix in with any crowd.

"Oh, of course, just please, don't get into any more fights," the wind mage said in as calm a tone as he could, despite still being shocked at the information he had gained during the meeting.

"I doubt anyone will want to try me right now," the sapphire eyed boy stated with a soft smile before he turned from the old man and proceeded to walk out of the door.

"That is something I can agree on," and with that the old man proceeded to get back to the paperwork that threatened to swamp him if he didn't get on with it, that is until the door opened again, this time revealing a beautiful woman with long green hair and a pair of spectacles adorning her face.

"What a strange boy," he heard her say as she brought in a large stack of papers for him to deal with.

"You have no idea," was his only response, earning a confused stare off the woman before a snarl stretched across her face… he really would have to train Chuchu to sneak better after all.

XXX XXX XXX

Minato couldn't stop himself from letting out a sigh of defeat as he left the library, he had thought that since they spoke French they would use the Latin alphabet, however he had quickly discovered that his conclusion had been spectacularly incorrect.

The alphabet they used was one he had never seen before and he had made it a point to at least learn how to identify different alphabets and where they originated. Yeah, he was rather knowledgeable, especially given his age, then again he had never answered a question wrong since he started high school and had never gotten less than the highest score in exams.

So his idea of systematically going through the library in an effort to discover if they had the fundamentals of space warping magic was no longer applicable… meaning he would have to either find someone willing to help him research or at the very least teach him how to read and write their language.

That thought occupied his mind as he wandered about aimlessly with his headphones clipped onto his ears. Normally he would be worried at the thought that the headphones would wear out due to use however this set was special, they had been hand crafted by Fūka so he knew that they would last him a lifetime without maintenance, that was how much he trusted the teal green haired girls talent with technology and engineering.

He allowed himself to blink in surprise as he felt a firm but light grip latch onto his sleeve, one that he had already grown to register as Louise's.

Looking to his side he was completely unsurprised to see the pinkette gripping his sleeve with what could pretty much be classified as a pout on her face.

"Sorry, did you say something?" he asked her in his usual drawl, earning a narrowing of the girls eyes as he removed one of his headphones in order to discover what he had missed.

"So I was right," she stated as a smirk graced her lips, "those discs stop you from hearing right?"

"No," he stated calmly before putting the headphone he wasn't wearing over her ear, enjoying the look of shock that spread across her face, "they let me listen to music wherever I am."

"H-how?" the loli asked in shock upon hearing the strange style she had never heard before, then again he was pretty sure that 'burn my dread' didn't exist in this world.

"Science," his answer earned him nothing more than a glare off the short girl as he mentioned that strange subject she had never heard of before that very morning.

"Oh shut up," she demanded, earning a smirk off the taller teen, "and stop wandering around, second years don't have classes today since we're expected to bond with our familiars."

"Oh… you're doing a poor job with that," the blue eyed boy stated bluntly, making the short girls face light up in anger.

"Just… shut… up… and… sit... down," she forced out through gritted teeth, earning an infuriating smirk off the bluenette.

"Doesn't bonding involve talking?" he asked knowingly, only to see the girl reach for her wand and then stop and look up at him.

"Shut up and give me back my wand!"

"No."

* * *

Holy shit that review section was long!

Anyway, that is all for now, I will try to update a little sooner however since my grandfather isn't doing so well I can't guarantee anything.

I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and would like to ask you to keep an eye on my profile page since I may be putting up a poll at some point (though there is no guarantee I will) concerning the situation that I've not made clear here.

I would also like to point out that the reason Minato didn't take any hits was to let Guiche know that he can't even lay a finger on him if he doesn't let him.

Anyway, that is all for now so until next time...

Fenris out!


	4. The Beginnings Of New Bonds

And I'm back.

let's get on with the show!

* * *

Louise found herself seething as she and her 'familiar' sat at a small round table in one of the courtyards. She really was not happy with her familiar, sure he was powerful, that much was a given, however she would've rather had a weaker familiar that would listen to her like familiars were supposed to instead of this ungrateful git.

It didn't help that the dark haired maid that was working in the yard seemed absolutely terrified of him and almost collapsed when he had called her over to order something to drink.

"Alright, what did you do to scare everyone that much?" the young pinkette finally asked in irritation, earning a shrug from the blue haired boy.

"Summoned Thanatos," Minato responded bluntly, earning a blank stare off the girl.

"And what is Thanatos?" she asked already expecting a headache.

"Death God," yep, she was right.

"That's it, I give up," she muttered quietly, earning a shrug of acceptance from the blue haired boy as Siesta returned with a tray filled with a cup of tea, a cup of black coffee and a series of biscuits and a couple of slices of cheesecake.

"Ari- thank you miss Siesta," the Japanese boy said with a small smile adorning his face as he picked up a slice of the cheesecake and took a bite out of it, earning a shocked look off the maid, "um… I really should thank the chef soon."

He completely ignored the odd looks he received from everyone in the yard, honestly the worse they thought of him, the easier it would be to stop himself from making new bonds that would complicate his departure from this world.

Despite his current lines of 'conversation' (honestly could a few words here and there be considered a conversation?), his mind was mulling over the fact that he would have to take a risk if he ever wanted to return home, namely find someone to teach him how to read and write their language.

That alone presented the problem of whoever he met with possibly gaining some form of bond, he still remembered the time he spent simply listening to Mutatsu's ramblings and how the man ended up treating him almost like a second son before going to find his real family.

He really hoped such a thing wouldn't happen here but knowing his luck it would. That thought made him let out a sigh that made the two girls that were there stare at him in confusion at his sudden exhale.

"What's wrong with you?" the shorter of the girls snapped at him, making the dark haired girl back away at what she considered a rather foolish move on the pink haired nobles part.

"Thinking," Minato responded without so much as blinking at the loli's aggression, honestly Shinjiro had been _much_ more intimidating than this frail little girl and he had actually considered him a comrade before… _that_ incident.

"Really?" the young mage said with sarcasm dripping from her tone, "I never knew you were capable of anything that advanced."

Siesta was practically ready to leg it for her life upon hearing the young Vallière make her jab at Minato's intelligence, that is until he simply shrugged his shoulders and took another bite of cheesecake and washed it down with some of the coffee she had brought with it.

"This is good coffee, thank you miss Siesta," the blue haired boy stated calmly before taking another sip of the black beverage and making the dark haired girls heart rate slow.

She knew why she was scared of him, with power like that at his disposal why wouldn't someone be scared of the boy? However she was definitely beginning to see what Tabitha meant earlier, Minato simply didn't seem even remotely aggressive despite his summoners obvious anger management issues… maybe he could teach her to stop blowing things up in anger? Then again maybe that was asking for too much given the young Vallière's temper.

"Uh… uh… thank you?" she hesitated as she watched the boy continue to devour the dessert and sip on the black liquid with an almost imperceptible smile gracing his lips.

"Explain!" the pink haired girl demanded earning a raised eyebrow off the blue haired boy, "why are you being nice to her and not me? Is it her chest?"

"No, you're just a bitch," silence reigned after that statement as the small pinkette proceeded to process his words and the dark haired maid inched away from the explosive named Louise.

The snarl that appeared on the loli's face was mere proof of her anger towards his assessment of her, that is before she proceeded to throw a plate at his face, where it immediately shattered upon impact.

"That wasn't very nice, you got ceramic in my coffee," the Japanese boy muttered quietly before putting his fingers in the cup in an attempt to retrieve the broken crockery.

"It's your own fault for disrespecting your master!" her voice carried through the courtyard and made every student back away from the duo, hoping that the blue haired boy wouldn't turn on them courtesy of his 'masters' outburst.

"You don't understand the situation you're in do you?" he asked her with narrowed eyes, making her suddenly blanch at his demeanour right now.

"I know exactly what the situation is, I summoned a worthless familiar that doesn't respect its master!" she stated exactly what was on her mind.

"Could you have forced me to submit to you?" the question immediately snapped the young mage out of her groove as she tried to process what he had asked her, "could you have made me your familiar if I hadn't let you?"

The second years all listened to the blue haired boy as he spoke with his 'master' in an even tone that sent shivers down their spines.

"The only reason you weren't expelled from this academy is because I took pity on you, I let you make me your familiar because I felt sorry for you," the words quickly made everyone listening shudder a little at the logic behind the statements, "I don't owe you for ripping me from my world, I don't owe you for binding me as your familiar, I owe you nothing but you owe me for deciding to play along and let you stay here."

Everyone in the yard shivered again at the evenness of the dark haired boy's tone, at the sheer fact he was listing off these points as facts like 'the sun is bright today' or 'that servant belongs to the academy'.

The only people that weren't shivering at his tone were Tabitha, who had already come to the same conclusion and Louise herself who was simply in too much shock at his words to do anything but stand there like a statue.

"I've been rather tolerant of your attitude and I honestly don't care if you don't like me, I have no intention of sticking around in this world any longer than I have to," everyone instantly blinked at that statement before the blue haired teen simply finished off his slice of cheesecake and took another sip of his coffee.

Every student stared on with wide eyes as the teen went back to his usual, quiet self, finding it hard to comprehend the boys explanation as he simply continued to eat and drink at a sedate pace, silently shocking those that had watched him eat earlier as they wondered exactly where he put it all.

"S-so you're saying that I'm useless too?" the now distraught pinkette asked as her eyes began to water, her harshly taught etiquette and control slipping after hearing the boys statements.

"No, I'm just stronger," his reply was short and simple however it didn't stop the second shortest from blowing up at him.

"IF THAT'S IT THEN WHY DO YOU PITY ME?!" her shout could be heard far beyond the yard and made Minato look up at her with his usual blank expression.

"I don't," the response simply made the girl even more furious at his apparent dismissal of his own statement.

"DON'T TAKE BACK WHAT YOU SAID!"

"I'm not, I pitied you then, I don't now," his words immediately snapped everyone out of whatever trance they were in as they tried to understand exactly what he meant, "I feel sorry for anyone that's forced to give up their education for something out of their control."

"W-what? Why?" Louise found herself lost for words upon hearing the boys statement and couldn't honestly see why he cared about such a thing, only nobles received one anyway right?

"Where I come from, everyone is expected to receive an education and getting a good one is important for later in life," he explained before continuing, "being denied that feels… wrong to me."

Once again everyone in the area blinked in surprise at his words, the thought of everyone receiving a formal education seemed strange to them when it was a nobles right in Halkeginia.

"So you're saying that everyone in your world is taught about magic?" Siesta decided to ask as her nerves died down.

"No, where I come from most people think magic doesn't exist," Minato stated calmly, earning a series of wide eyes at his statement, "if I'm right, then only a handful of people can use it in my world."

Silence reigned upon the blue haired boy finishing his statement, at that point most of the students that had been listening to him had proceeded to look at his 'master', who was currently standing with her arms at her side and her head held low.

Inside the pink haired girls head, the statements the persona user had made were being processed and despite how much she wanted to deny it, she found that she couldn't deny anything he had said. She was indebted to him for submitting to the contract.

It didn't take long for her to storm away in a brisk walk, one that Minato recognised from SEES time at the Kirijo mansion… it was the same as Yakari when she had seen the doctored video of her father.

Letting out a sigh he finished his coffee and took a biscuit before stand up himself and turning to the dark haired maid.

"Arigato Siesta-san… I mean, thank you Ms Siesta," he stated with a small bow that made the maid uneasy, she wasn't used to people bowing towards her, before he proceeded to follow the pinkette.

XXX XXX XXX

Finally reaching her room, Louise finally allowed the tears she had been holding back to flow as her mind focused on the simple fact that her familiar really was the sole reason she hadn't been sent home as a complete failure.

It was for that reason that she found herself distraught, it wasn't her own ability that allowed her to contract her familiar but _his_ morals. It was just further proof in the long line of screw ups that gave her the nickname 'zero'.

The only consolation was that he was capable of summoning beings of immense power, though she was pretty sure that he wouldn't bother using that ability to protect her like any normal familiar would.

So it was with wet eyes that she threw herself on her bed, prepared to simply cry herself to sleep as she thought of everything that had gone wrong in her life since the summoning ritual however her attempt failed courtesy of the knock that resounded against her door that almost immediately opened before she could even give the all clear to enter.

Entering the room was the one person she didn't want to see right now, hell even Kirche was preferable to the blue haired persona user right now, however her preference didn't matter to him.

"Go away," she muttered before burying her face in her mattress, only to feel the bed sag ever so slightly upon the Japanese teen sitting on it.

"Just so you know, I don't blame you for summoning me," the academically bright teen stated calmly, earning no response from the girl before he continued, "but that doesn't change the fact that I want to get home as soon as possible."

"The thing is, in my world there was an event that was going to happen, we called it 'the fall'," he started to inform the pink haired girl who turned her head slightly to get a better look at him, "during the fall, a being of unrivalled power started to descend on my planet and its mere presence started to destroy the minds of every human on my planet."

Louise couldn't stop herself from feeling curious right now, honestly she hadn't heard him speak much of his home world outside of the existence of that so called 'science' and hearing him talk about something unrelated to that topic made her desire for knowledge tingle.

"Me and my friends worked hard to try and stop Nyx from descending upon our world but in the end, we were too weak," the blue haired teen stated, earning wide eyes from the girl who simply decided to ask her question.

"Did I summon you then?" her voice was laced with curiosity though it was far quieter than usual.

"No, in the end I managed to gain a power that allowed me to seal Nyx away from the world… by using my soul as a barrier," that was when it suddenly made sense to the pink haired girl and she honestly began to feel sick at the thought of what she had done by summoning him.

"S-so I doomed a world by summoning you?" she asked earning a surprisingly soft look off her familiar.

"I don't know, it's possible that my world has already been destroyed by Nyx, while it's also possible that the physical barrier still has enough power left to contain it for a little longer, I honestly don't know," he stated with a frown.

"I-I'm sorry," her voice was quiet, so quiet Minato found himself blinking a couple of times to process if he had heard her right before he simply placed a hand on top of her head.

"Like I said, I don't blame you, that Professor Colbert guy did mention that you had no say in your summon," his tone was softer than he usually used for her but then again she wasn't in the same situation as before.

Before, she had gotten upset over being unable to order him about but now, she was upset because she had finally been woken up to reality, so he was now acting to comfort the girl that was of similar age to him.

"However that doesn't mean I'll let you boss me around, Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière," he stated in his quiet drawl that made her raise an eyebrow at him.

"You can remember my full name but not Guiche's first name?" she asked genuinely confused at how he had managed to get her full name right on his first go after only hearing it once.

"Who?" his blank expression upon saying that made her feel better, enough so that she found herself giggling a little at the situation.

"You know, I'm beginning to think you are just pretending to not know who he is," the pink haired girl said as she rose from her lying position with a very slight smile on her face.

"Don't tell anyone," Minato said with a small smile that almost resembled a grin adorning his face, making the pink haired loli's eyes widen as he practically confirmed that she was right, "trolling a troll is fun."

"You do realise that Guiche is a human right?" she asked him wondering why he kept calling the blond ponce a troll.

"Lesson time," immediately the pink haired girl blinked in confusion before he continued, "in my world there is a mass communication system we call the internet, basically it allows everyone with access to it to communicate with anyone else with it, most people in countries with advanced technology have access to it. What makes the internet so special is that people can post things anonymously and because of that, there are some people who post things in public places with the sole purpose of getting a rise out of others and starting conflict, we call them trolls and what they do, trolling."

"Oh… so how is Guiche a troll?" she asked in genuine curiosity, earning an 'are you seriously asking that?' expression from the boy.

"How many times has he made fun of you just to get a reaction?" he asked her, earning a look of realisation from the pink haired student.

"Too many," her statement was blunt and her expression was blank upon saying that, earning a small smile from the boy that found her deadpanned expression particularly amusing.

"That's a good deadpan," his words made the young Vallière look at him in confusion, earning a small chuckle from the boy, "deadpan is a term used for when a person purposely displays no emotion on their face."

"Why does that matter?" the pinkette asked in confusion, earning a wry grin off the taller boy.

"You'd be surprised just how expressive being expressionless can be at the appropriate times," the blue haired boy explained calmly, earning frown from the young girl.

"I don't get it," Louise stated, her frown still on her face.

"You will in time," the persona user said with a small smile, "well, I'm going to go now, are you coming or do you want to be alone for a while?"

"I… I'll stay here for now," the pink eyed mage stated before noticing something hit her bed, making her blink as she beheld her wand, making her look at her familiar who simply gave her a soft smile.

"I think I can trust you with that now but if you point it at me I will take it off you and next time, you won't get it back," his statement made a small smile appear on the nobles face at finally getting her wand back in her possession, honestly it had cost a lot of money to get it with a self-repairing enchantment for her numerous failed attempts at magic that often damaged it to an unusable extent.

"Th-th-thank you," Louise found it incredibly difficult to force those words out, the mere thought of thanking a commoner or familiar just seemed so… wrong in her mind, however the warm smile she received for it made her feel a little better, it was nice to have her familiar smile at her instead of simply ignore her like he had done previously.

And with that he left, ready to try and find someone who could help teach him how to read and write their language. He would've asked Louise but he was certain she wasn't the teacher type, she simply lacked the patience for such a position.

XXX XXX XXX

This was new. He had never come face to face with an actual dragon before, not that it really bothered him, this small blue dragon was just looking at him like a child does something new and exciting.

It actually made him curious, he had seen, read and played many forms of media with dragons in them and while dragons were regularly made out to be beasts of immense destructive power, they were also portrayed as incredibly intelligent beings capable of making the smartest of humans look like Junpei… well maybe not _quite_ that stupid but still pretty stupid... that was when he realised that he had spent _far _too much time around Yukari.

"Hello, my name is Minato Arisato, what's yours?" he immediately noticed the winged reptile blink several times in surprise before its eyes looked upwards for an instant before it gave its response.

"Kyuuui?"

"That's a strange name," he stated, earning a shake of its head at his statement, "it isn't a strange name?"

He almost found himself laughing at what would probably be best described as the dragons 'pout' before it proceeded to move its head over to his arm and give it a soft nip of displeasure.

"Ow…" the amount of enthusiasm he put behind his statement made the dragon make it's 'pouting' face again before it made another noise.

"Kyuuui!" at that point the blue haired boy let out a sigh of understanding before facing the dragon again.

"I see… so you're just pretending that you can't speak," once again the dragons eyes blinked in shock, however this time there was a minor hint of fear lacing them, telling the blue haired boy exactly why it wasn't speaking with him, "don't be so surprised, I'm actually quite good at reading people and your eyes are far too expressive to hide your intelligence from me."

"Still, if you're scared of me knowing I guess that means that bad stuff usually happens to dragons that can talk right?" he wasn't at all surprised that the dragon looked away during his statement, its head held low at the fact someone knew, "well, it's not like it matters to me, I was just looking for Tabitha anyway."

That statement made the blue skinned dragon blink in surprise at his sudden dismissal, especially how he simply chose to walk past it in his search for the other blue haired teen that lived in the academy.

He didn't get far before feeling a firm tug on his shoulder, making him turn his head to see that the dragon was gripping it with its mouth.

"Do you know where Tabitha is?" he asked making the dragon release him before giving him a nod before motioning for him to straddle its back.

Shrugging his shoulders, he decided to follow the dragons instructions, if it threw him off it he could always just equip Beelzebub again and nullify the damage from striking the ground.

Honestly it was rather nice to ride on the dragon, sure it wasn't the same as floating up to the moon back when he initiated the great seal but it was a close second and gave him a reasonable view of the surrounding area.

He even saw a small town in the distance, though given the size of what looked like a castle he suspected it was probably one of the larger towns in the country at the very least… it was still tiny compared to any of his worlds cities though.

His mind cut itself off from that particular line of thought upon seeing a light blue head of hair on the ground that was getting closer relatively quickly.

Tabitha looked up upon hearing the flapping of her familiars wings, only to raise an eyebrow at the passenger on the dragons back that quickly disembarked when the blue reptile landed.

"Hello Tabitha," he stated quietly, earning a nod of acknowledgement from the bespectacled girl who quickly put her book away and stood up to face him, "I have a favour to ask of you."

The shorter of the bluenettes simply proceeded to stare at him with her usual blank expression, while most would be slightly unnerved by it, he had grown up seeing a similar one in the mirror every day so it didn't deter him in the slightest.

"Could you teach me how to read your language?" one blink, two blinks, then a nod of confirmation was the response he received. He let out a small smile before the shortest in her year spoke.

"If you teach me science," Minato found himself blinking just a couple of times at her statement, honestly he didn't expect anyone in this world to even want to learn anything he knew… well outside of persona that is but he couldn't teach something like that.

"I'll try but most people start learning the most basic science when they're about four, five years old, so I can't promise you'll understand it anytime soon," he warned her, earning a nod of acceptance from the cloaked girl, "so do you want to start today?"

Once again he received a small nod off the short haired girl. Offering her a soft smile, he immediately turned and started walking the shortest route towards the library, Tabitha following just behind him while the dragon was left staring at the boy she had flown to her master.

Honestly the part that caught her attention the most was that he had figured out that she could talk but outside of being a little annoyed that she didn't, he didn't really seem to care about that fact.

It was also a surprise that he didn't mention it to her master that he'd figured it out, sure Tabitha already knew but a mage wasn't going to put their familiar under the spotlight around other mages.

There was another thing that confused the blue wind dragon, namely the boys power, she had witnessed it back when he fought the blond boy and it confused her that she could feel that power dwelling within him, like some sort of lake held behind a damn that was released when he summoned that… empty creature.

It was really confusing for the dragon that such a being didn't feel evil or anything like that, it simply felt empty, like a void that simply existed despite not really being there. Then again he did call it a god of death, so it did make a certain amount of sense to her, death was a lack of life after all.

Still, the mere fact that the boy felt like he contained that power among others was enough to gain the interest of the blue skinned reptile and so it was with an active mind that she took to the air, fully intending on having a nice long nap before she was called upon again.

XXX XXX XXX

Minato had to admit, it was rather nostalgic sitting in a library with a girl, it almost reminded him of his time spent with Chihiro-chan… the main difference there was that Chihiro was shy while Tabitha was simply quiet.

"Okay, so how do you write numbers?" he immediately asked the shorter bluenette who immediately started writing roman numerals while including the Arabic numeral for Zero. It honestly surprised him given that he was expecting them to use something completely different to anything found on Earth but it did make it a little easier for him.

"Alright, first things first, I'm going to teach you about Arabic numbers," he stated calmly, earning a blank look off the lighter haired girl before he proceeded to place lines next to her numbers and put the Arabic equivalent on the other end.

Tabitha found herself confused upon seeing the strange collection of numbers that he had written down to be the equivalent of what she had written, it also confused her that he seemed to be focused on the matter of numbers right now.

"Why?" her question made Minato blink before he anticipated that she was asking why he was putting so much emphasis on numbers.

"To learn any advanced science you need a solid foundation in Mathematics, sometimes called 'the science of numbers'," he explained quietly. If there had been anyone else in the library they probably wouldn't have been able to make out what he had been saying given how quiet it was, not that Tabitha minded, it was a welcome relief to Kirche's boisterous calls.

Receiving a nod of understanding from the bespectacled girl, he started explaining how the numbering system worked, detailing the positioning of numbers in the manner of units, tens, hundreds, thousands etc. To be honest he was beginning to wonder if he was going a little too quickly but given that the quiet girl seemed to be soaking up the knowledge like a sponge he decided to simply go at her pace, occasionally testing her comprehension of the subject he was teaching.

Of course eventually they stopped that particular activity upon which Tabitha started her attempt at teaching, it was rather strange if he was honest with himself, the simple fact that she actually spoke proper sentences then was unusual but that was more to do with the fact that she was showing him how sentences were written in Halkeginia.

By the time the duo finished for the evening, Minato wasn't really that far along as far as reading the strange runic marks of Halkeginian, sure he now understood a few basic points of the written version of the language but that didn't change the fact that he was about as capable of reading it as a commoner with no education… if he was that far along.

Sure Tabitha was only familiarising herself with the Arabic numbers and the concept of addition and subtraction but given the fact that they had only been doing it for a few hours at most meant that they weren't actually doing as bad as it felt. Especially given that Tabitha had understood the inherent logic behind the numbers she was being taught to use.

Still, their time of private studying was over and the two blue headed teens found themselves walking towards the dining hall, ready for their evening meal.

Many students they saw in the corridors started whispering about 'the demon summoner and the Gallian', though both ignored the whispers, Tabitha because she didn't really care what they thought of her and Minato because he was currently listening to his mp3 player again.

Eventually they made it to the hall where Minato noted that Louise had already sat herself at the table for second years, prompting him to walk over and take a seat next to the pink haired girl and take off his headphones while Tabitha took a place on his other side.

"Hello fa- I mean Minato," Louise started only to catch her slip up, deciding that it would probably be better for her if she at least called him by name.

"Evening Louise," he replied calmly, earning a nervous glance off the pink eyed girl as everyone watched the proceedings between the two zeroes.

"I have a question," the young pinkette stated quietly, though not quietly enough to keep her conversation secret from the other nobles.

"Go on," he said in his usual drawl, causing the young girl to take a deep breath before asking what she wanted to.

"Do you have an elemental alignment?" her question made him pause for a second before he decided to get more information from the girl concerning exactly what and why she wanted to know.

"Can you expand on that question please?" he asked her, earning a confused expression from the girl, "I mean, do you want to know what my strengths and weaknesses are? And if not then why?"

"W-well a familiar is supposed to represent the summoner so if you had an elemental affinity then that'd let me know what mine was," she informed him while looking down at the table, earning sniggers from some of the other students.

"I see, what did I tell you I was when you asked me what I am last night?" he asked her, earning a couple of blinks from the second shortest girl in the year.

"A… a zero," her voice nearly cracked when she admitted that, honestly she was now regretting asking him in public since the other students were starting to chuckle at her predicament.

"And what is zero?" that question threw everyone for a loop, since when had anyone even cared about the number used to represent nothing?

"Nothing…" she admitted, making several students laugh out loud at the admission while some of the more intelligent students continued to listen since they were getting the feeling that the familiar had a point outside of that.

"Well, there is a little more to it than that but that is one meaning of it," Minato admitted, earning nothing but confused stares all around, well except for Tabitha who was looking at him with interest, "I'll teach you the technicalities of it later okay Tabitha-san but that's not important, the important part is that there is another word for a lack of something."

The hall was left staring in confusion before Tabitha decided to speak up, "Void."

Immediately the students gave an outburst, accusing him of heresy and sacrilege, not that he cared, they had all been terrified of him just earlier so it wasn't like they'd try and fight him… and if they did he was pretty sure he could win, all he needed to do was a single Armageddon… hell a morning star would probably be enough to destroy these people.

The only people that weren't joining the accusations were Tabitha and Louise, though he did note that Kirche, that blonde girl that had rushed to the downed Guiche and the other girl he had been seen with weren't there. There were probably even more people that hadn't arrived yet but he didn't know them and therefore didn't know how many weren't there.

The problem though was that Louise seemed to be taking the calls negatively and to top it off, they were beginning to give him a headache so he did the simplest thing he could think of to make them shut up.

In an instant the rune on the back of his hand transformed to take the form 'XVII' before another sight that would forever be etched into the minds of the students was seen.

Eyes widened upon witnessing the pale skinned man with twelve wings and a pair of slender horns erupting from his head, his light blond hair flowing behind him while a single line of floating cloth hid his modesty.

"Let me introduce you to Helel, the morning star," Minato stated calmly as the aura of his persona washed over the student body, doing the exact opposite of Thanatos, easing them all and supplying a sense of warmth and protection as opposed to a cold emptiness.

"Now please, stop shouting, I would like to have dinner after all," the blue haired boy stated calmly before noting that a certain redhead had entered the hall and was looking at his persona in awe while lacking the fear that Thanatos had instilled in her previously.

Everyone continued to stare into space after the angelic version of Lucifer dissipated into the air, leaving the room in a stunned silence that Minato, Tabitha and Louise were all grateful for.

Eventually Kirche proceeded to sit down next to her shorter friend, her gaze still displaying open shock at what she had just seen, to think that Louise's familiar had a being with such a fundamentally different aura to the one he had crushed Guiche with.

"That was… unreal," Louise was the one to break the silence, sure she had seen Orpheus however the feel that this Helel gave off was (while not as strong) far more comforting, it made her feel like she would be safe no matter what she did.

And that was the first time she was happy to have him as her familiar.

* * *

And that's that.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

There is another thing I wish to say, I have a few challenges on my profile, one of which I'm thinking of writing myself, the challenge titled 'The Ardent And Zero's Familiars?' please have a look at the challenge and tell me if you think I should attempt it myself.

Anyway, until next time!

Fenris out!


	5. The Secretary, Teacher And Familiar

Hello everyone.

I'm finally back and I have a couple of announcements to make before we begin.

One: because of a certain review complaining about my responses to reviews taking up so much space I have decided to follow another authors (pokemaster12 to be specific) example and I will be posting review responses on my blog that can be accessed by my profile page.

Two: I have put up a poll that I would like everyone who reads most of my stories to vote on, it is simply a question of whether or not I should attempt to write any of my own challenges or not.

Anyway, that is all for now so without further ado, let's get this show on the road.

* * *

Louise didn't know what to think as she lay on her bed. Just earlier that very day her familiar had accused her of having an affinity towards void magic. Sure she didn't exactly like the fact that he made that connection and she didn't really believe him, however there was one major problem in her attempts to deny it.

It made sense.

All her life she had been a failure at using any element of magic but despite that, she was always capable of creating an effect… sure it was always an explosion but it was still an effect that would require magical power to achieve. So that meant she had magic but it wasn't aligned to any of the four normal elements, which logically left only one… Brimir's element.

Claiming to possess the void was regularly considered to be in bad taste, the void was the power of the founder, the person that created the very system of magic they had been using for over a thousand years, to claim you possessed the power he did was considered to be the same as comparing yourself to God itself.

Then again, he made a very sensible point that everyone found themselves shocked to the core about, 'Brimir may have been powerful but he was still human'. That particular statement had gone over very badly, that is until he began to burst their brains with something he called 'genetics'. Honestly what was Deoxyribonucleic Acid?

Eventually everyone had simply decided to shut up before he talked them to death. That was something that made her smile, while he could easily crush anyone there, he was more likely to make your head explode via a 'science lecture'.

The surprising part though was that Tabitha seemed to be trying to take notes on his lecture, though exactly how she would understand such information was beyond her.

Right now though, the sun had set and she was simply lying on her bed, already changed into her nightgown while the blue haired boy sat at her desk attempting to read one of her books. Normally she would've been put off by the fact he was using her tomes but when he explained that their language was written differently where he came from and he was trying to learn how to read, she decided to humour him.

"Louise?" came a rather subdued call from the Japanese boy, making her look at him before replying.

"Yes fa- Minato," she almost frowned at that, she was having to make a conscious effort to not call him familiar and actually use his name when addressing him… otherwise she was sure he'd go back to calling her pinky and she didn't want that.

"What does this word say?" he asked her now that he knew she hadn't fallen asleep and walked over to the side of her bed and point out the word he was having trouble with.

"It says 'familiar'," she informed the boy with a hint of amusement that the word he showed her was the one that was used to describe his position within her world.

"I see… can you break down the syllables for me?" the blue eyed boy asked her calmly, earning a small nod off the girl as she broke down the word for him.

"Ariga- I mean, thank you Louise," his statement made her feel good, it was certainly nicer to have him treat her with at least a small amount of respect even if he refused to let her step all over him like she originally tried to do.

"Are you nearly finished? I wish to retire for the night," she asked with a tone that she hoped sounded firm without sounding condescending or aggressive.

"Huh, oh, sure, just let me mark the page I'm on okay?" he responded before placing a slip of paper in the book he was practicing with.

Immediately he proceeded to walk over the the new addition to the room, a small bed that was situated in the corner, apparently the young pinkette had asked a servant to bring one for him before she had gone for dinner.

"Oyasumi Nasai," he said as he got into the surprisingly comfortable bed before realising he'd slipped up again, "I mean, good night."

"Uh, y-yeah, good night Minato," she let out a small smile at that, for once she hadn't had to stop herself from calling him familiar, maybe it wouldn't be as hard as she thought, "oh, by the way, can you wake me up at dawn tomorrow?"

"Hai… I mean yes," his response almost made her smile, to think he was occasionally slipping up and speaking in that weird tongue he occasionally used, it actually made her feel bad about her original treatment of the boy that was fluently speaking a second language like it was the most natural thing in the world.

It really did show just how academically brilliant he was, honestly she was beginning to wonder if he would make a good teacher if he wasn't planning on going home and sacrificing himself to save his world again.

That thought instantly made her depressed for two reasons, one, he would happily die for his world… again and two, he was planning on leaving her and she was actually beginning to enjoy his company now that she'd stopped trying to dominate the indomitable.

Hell, it was him that had given her a reason for her inability to use magic that seemed to fit in with all the knowledge she already knew.

Eventually though, her mind simply couldn't continue to remain functioning as her tiredness overcame it and she fell into a blissful sleep.

XXX XXX XXX

The following morning was rather uneventful as far as everyone was concerned, Minato woke Louise when he got up, which despite her previous statement of being woken up at dawn, wasn't what she actually meant, then they had a minor argument over her manner of getting dressed, namely that he didn't want to dress her and she didn't like the idea of dressing herself when there was a servant available to do so for her.

That was resolved when the blue haired boy proceeded to tell her in no uncertain terms that he didn't dress others. Undress them was an entirely different matter altogether though that act was for a completely different reason than what the pink haired girl wanted.

Eventually though, Minato left the room to let Louise change in peace, deciding to wait for her this time since she was being at least partially reasonable, far better than she had been the previous morning.

He noted that one of the doors in the hallway was open slightly, allowing him to glimpse a hint of tanned skin and red hair from within that room. He didn't bother calling out the Germanian, if she still wanted to hide from him then he'd let her, after all it wasn't like he was trying to make friends in this school.

Hearing the door open, he glanced to the side and gave a brief nod to the pink haired girl who returned the gesture before the duo proceeded to walk off towards the dining hall with the blue haired boy placing his headphones on his ears as he turned on the music to drown out any whispers that may have followed.

Upon seeing the persona user leave the corridor, Kirche proceeded to leave her room, her red skinned familiar close behind. Honestly she knew that she was overreacting however even after seeing that 'Helel' as he called it, every time she saw him she was reminded of what had happened to the blond ponce that had picked a fight with him.

The simple fact that Minato was so ruthless when dealing with the dot class earth mage made her uncomfortable. It was proof that despite his aloofness, if you actively involved him in any form of conflict, it was entirely possible that you wouldn't get up ever again.

Then there was the short display he gave with the spear of one of Guiche's Valkyries, it was obvious that he was a warrior with at least a reasonable amount of experience behind him if he was capable of disarming one of the golems and then knock the rest away like ragdolls.

Sure Guiche wasn't exactly powerful but to possess the strength and skill to overcome six bronze Golems was no laughing matter and showed just how skilled the blue haired boy really was compared to them… even without his summons.

And the summons themselves, they were so ridiculously overpowered she didn't have a word suitable for them.

Letting out a sigh she proceeded to walk down to the dining hall, hoping against hope that Tabitha would sit away from the boy today… not that she was holding onto any delusions of that, the lighter haired bluenette seemed strangely attached to the taller teen.

Then again she would probably have found him rather attractive if it wasn't for her outright terror when it concerned being near him.

XXX XXX XXX

Breakfast passed without any incidents, apparently Guiche was still recovering from his beating and the two girls he recognised as rushing towards the boy were glaring at him with unbidden fury.

The most exciting thing that happened was that he had gotten into a rather small argument with Louise over whether he would go to class with her or not, she wanted him there to act as a deterrent for the usual taunts she received and he wanted to get some more practice with learning how to read their language in.

Eventually she relented when he declared that if he was forced to attend her classes, he would do his utmost to disrupt the lessons and get her in trouble with the faculty, apparently she really didn't want to get in the teachers bad graces and eventually decided to let him do what he wanted.

Still, he would admit that trying to learn their runes was rather strange, for some reason each rune had its own specific name but combining them created a completely different way of pronouncing it, fortunately it seemed as though they followed a set pattern in how they were spoken which meant he should be capable of adjusting it to his knowledge of French and work his way up from there.

And if he had any more problems, he could ask someone more knowledgeable in the language than he was and use their input to get the gist of the sentence. It also gave him a chance to seek out the kitchen staff and thank them for their excellent meals.

Walking along the corridors, he simply let his mind focus on the music blaring in his ears as he kept his eyes open in case anyone came in the other direction and sure enough his eyes lay upon a familiar mop of black hair.

Siesta was obviously scared of the distant boy however that didn't stop him from simply walking up to her and making a little conversation as he pulled off his headphones.

"Ohayō… sorry, I mean morning," he started to mumble as the busty maid proceeded to try and cover her discomfort of being around him for any length of time.

"Y-yes Mr Arisato… i-is there anything I can he-help you with?" he promptly ignored the fact she was stuttering and instead offered a very simple question.

"How good are you at reading?" his question threw the young girl for a loop as she tried to understand exactly why he was asking her about her ability to read.

"Y-yes?" she answered hesitantly, earning a nod off the dark blue haired boy.

"Are you busy?" once again he made his question with no emotion playing across his face, honestly the mere fact that he was so inexpressive unnerved the young maid greatly.

"Y-yes?" once again she stuttered a little in nervousness, earning an 'oh' from the blue haired teen.

"Okay, sorry for bothering you Miss Siesta," Minato stated before he proceeded to put his headphones back on his ears and walked away calmly,

Seeing him calmly accept her excuse, and it was an excuse, made the young maid feel guilty. She had been raised under the morals of helping others, it was something that most (if not all) commoners were expected to do, even if the person in need of help wasn't a noble, they still needed to stick together in order to survive in a world run by those with power.

And here she was denying someone that had enough power to terrify nobles, someone that she should be too scared to deny, someone that should easily be capable of using her for whatever they wanted, and instead she found herself denying him and getting away with it. He wasn't even threatening her, he was simply treating her like an equal despite the knowledge that he was so far beyond the others in the school that he could probably make them all bow before him.

It would've been a lot easier for her if he was an arrogant, egocentric bastard that took being denied as a personal insult, at least then she would know how to react to his presence instead of constantly facing an internal struggle every time she witnessed his face now.

Letting out a sigh of frustration, she shook her head and proceeded to head back towards the servants lodgings to gather the supplies she needed for the next job she would have to complete.

XXX XXX XXX

Minato didn't find anyone else on his way towards the library, not that he was actively looking for anyone and he realised that most people would currently be in class and therefore too busy to be wandering the hallways like he was.

However just because there was no one in the hallways, didn't mean there was no one in the library itself. Entering the room his finely honed senses easily picked up two individuals, one who was sitting at a desk reading a tome of some sort and the other was currently hidden by a bookshelf, though he could pick up the rustling of their clothes and their footsteps.

Of course what really caught his attention was the way the man at the table was muttering to himself as he looked over the book he was reading, he honestly sounded rather annoyed.

"Problem Professor Colbert?" he asked quietly, earning a startled flinch from the balding man, given the amount of concentration the man had focused on the book, Minato was certain he should've jumped a little more than that, meaning the man was probably either used to being surprised or trained to minimize the effects of it… he couldn't decide whether it was one, the other or both.

"Ah, Mr Familiar," the glasses wearing teacher stated with a kind smile before he was interrupted.

"My name is Minato Arisato, not familiar, surely you should understand that Mr Professor?" the blue haired boy stated before catching movement out the corner of his eye, allowing him to make out the second person in the room, "good morning Miss…"

"Longueville," the woman responded seeing where he was going. Minato could honestly admit that she was an attractive young woman, with green hair tied into a topknot while a pair of wire frame glasses adorned her face. The part that really got him though, was that like Louise, she was the first person he had met with such an unusual shade of hair, sure Fūka had teal hair, but this woman had hair the colour of grass.

"Dōzo yoroshiku, sorry, I mean pleased to meet you," he quickly corrected upon seeing the confused looks on the two people he was currently sharing the room with.

"Uh... pleased to meet you too?" the green haired woman responded with a hint of uncertainty in her tone.

"Sorry, the language you speak isn't my native tongue so I occasionally slip up and revert to my native tongue," he explained calmly, earning several blinks of surprise from the young woman.

"There are other languages?" she asked with an incredulous expression adorning her face, making the young bluenette blink in surprise at her, honestly it had never occurred to him that this world may not have multiple languages and instead possess a single unified communication system.

"Forget I said anything," he quickly decided to just cut off the conversation there in the hopes that he could save time and focus on finding a way home.

"Ah yes, you haven't heard but apparently Minato here is from another world," the blue robed teacher stated with a smile, earning a blank stare off the younger woman.

"Another world? And you expect me to believe that tripe?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and absolute scepticism in her tone, earning a nervous chuckle off the balding man. Not that Minato minded, his opinion of the woman had just been raised a little higher by her instant dismissal of his origins, honestly he had expected the headmaster to call him a liar when he initially made his claim concerning not being from this world.

It was nice to see someone that wasn't a gullible moron for a change, sure it would be a lot harder for him if they weren't gullible but it sure was nice to see someone that would question what they heard.

"Well Old Osmond believes him and you know that someone as experienced as him wouldn't believe something as outlandish as that without a good reason," the bespectacled man stated calmly, earning a few blinks of surprise from the green haired woman.

"Back where I come from, there is a term called 'senile'," the blue haired boy stated bluntly, earning a splutter of indignation from the balding faculty member.

"The headmaster is not senile!" the glasses wearing man proclaimed loudly, making the teen ponder why there wasn't a librarian despite the room being a library, back at Gekkoukan there would've been at the very least a stern word for making such noise in what is supposed to be a quiet area.

"Are you sure?" the darkly dressed boy asked blankly, earning a bit of a glare off the blue robed teacher, though he also noticed a hint of amusement on the woman's face, obviously she didn't hold the headmaster in such high esteem and given that he was certain she was his secretary, she probably had the best idea of what the man's character was like.

"Yes I am sure, Old Osmond is a great mage and a good man, accusing him of being senile is simply unacceptable," Colbert exclaimed angrily, though Minato paid more attention to how the green haired secretary's smile widened upon seeing the oldest of the trio getting angry.

"Then prove it," that immediately got the bald mans attention, "go to the headmaster and ask him why he's prepared to believe me, if his reasons are good then I'll acknowledge that he isn't senile, if not then you have to acknowledge that he is either senile, or a gullible moron."

"Why are you trying to discredit him when he's clearly the reason anyone believes you?" the aging professor asked after taking a few seconds to cool down, seriously, it had been a very long time since he had last lost his temper.

"I just think it's foolish for him to trust a stranger so easily," the blue haired teen stated before pulling out a book that he had given a quick look over before taking it to the table where he would practice his reading.

"You really are a strange boy aren't you Mr Arisato," the green haired woman stated before anything else could be said.

"More than you know Longueville-san," the blue haired boy responded quietly as he attempted to interpret the text before him.

"Another slip of the tongue?" she asked him with a small grin, earning a soft smile off the boy.

"Sorry, san is essentially the same as calling someone Miss or Mister depending on their gender," the persona user explained to the young woman who simply raised an eyebrow at him before deciding to dismiss it.

"Well, whatever the case I think I'll go and question the headmaster, then when I come back with valid excuses you'll have to apologise for making such rude comments about him," the teacher stated before turning and walking away from the younger duo before leaving the library without any further ado.

Upon seeing the experienced fire user leave, the green haired woman turned to give the young boy a scrutinising look as she began to try and determine how dangerous the boy was. She knew he completely lacked any sense of danger that was normally given off by a reasonably powerful foe, however she knew that there were some people that didn't give off an air of danger despite how capable and deadly they really were, Professor Colbert was a perfect example of that.

She had read his files, not that she was supposed to but that wouldn't stop her, imagine her surprise when she found out that the mild mannered scholar turned out to be a highly trained soldier that had a record of achievements longer than her arm… to top it off he was a square class fire mage, capable of wielding one of the most destructive elements known to magic at a level beyond what most could ever hope to achieve.

Sure she doubted this boy was going to be like that but it didn't stop her from trying to determine just how much of a threat he could potentially become, especially after hearing rumours that he had completely bested Guiche De Gramont by summoning a monstrous creature from out of nowhere… she was definitely going to take those rumours with several grains of salt, the chances were that they were simply exaggerating or completely fabricating what happened in order to make themselves feel better about a noble losing to a commoner.

As she watched him, she saw that he was focussing rather intently on the text in front of him and regularly displaying very minor hints of frustration, raising her curiosity over what he was reading. Leaning over his shoulder, a frown quickly made itself known on her lips as she wondered why he was apparently having such a hard time with the rather simple book.

"I'm sorry but I couldn't help but notice you seem to be having some trouble with that tome," she stated as cordially as possible, earning a shrug off the boy, "I know quite a bit about the subject myself if you need any help."

"I don't need help understanding the concepts contained within the book," the bluenette explained calmly, earning another raised eyebrow from the bespectacled secretary, "I need help reading it."

The response threw the young woman off balance as she tried to figure out why he would have any problems reading the tome but have none understanding what he managed to read. As if reading her thoughts he explained his situation to her.

"You see, where I come from there isn't an alphabet like this, so while I can speak your language, I only started learning how to read it yesterday," once again he earned a sceptical look off the green haired woman who simply proceeded to sit down next to him.

"And you expect me to believe that our language exists in your world while our writing system doesn't? You really aren't thinking through how you're trying to convince me you aren't lying are you?" the young secretary stated with a small grin.

"I never said I was trying to convince you," he stated bluntly, earning a few blinks of surprise from the member of staff, "I know I am not from this world and I intend on finding a way back home as soon as possible, which is exactly why I am trying to learn how to read this worlds alphabet."

Longueville couldn't stop herself from staring at the sheer conviction that made itself clear in the boys tone, it actually made her believe he was being honest, even if that honesty was potentially just because he hit his head too hard at some point.

"So you really believe you're from another world," she muttered quietly, unsure about what to think of the boy before her, "fine then, how about I give you a hand with that book."

"Thank you Miss Longueville," he responded with a grateful smile at the fact this woman he barely knew was prepared to help him.

"It's quite alright, besides it gives me a reason to keep away from that old pervert," immediately Minato realised why the woman seemed so amused at his previous insinuations concerning the headmaster, apparently he wasn't exactly good with young women.

"Well you can't really blame an old man for being less than scrupulous with such an attractive young woman," he stated bluntly, earning an inquisitive stare from the green haired woman.

"You know, I honestly can't tell if you were trying to flatter me or just state an observation," she finally admitted, earning a couple of blinks off the young boy.

"I was stating a combination of observation and opinion," the blue haired former student stated blankly, "since I have no intention of remaining in this world for long, I have no intention of getting close to anyone which also means I won't have any intention of flattering anyone, especially people I have only just met."

"I suppose I'll take that as a compliment then," the secretary responded, earning a shrug of the younger boys shoulders before he turned back to the book he was trying to read, "so what are you having trouble with?"

XXX XXX XXX

Professor Colbert couldn't believe his ears, to think that Old Osmond actually had previous experience with a person from a different world, he had expected the man to have a good reason for believing the young familiar but he hadn't expected one so impressive, especially when he discovered that the staff of destruction the royal family had decided to store in the academy's vault had been brought by the other worlder.

It did also make the middle aged man wonder if the blue haired boy would know anything about the artefact. Honestly having someone who could potentially shed some light on the apparently very powerful object. Of course they would need permission from the royal family in order to do such a thing and that could be difficult.

The worst part though was that he was getting the feeling that the blue haired familiar wouldn't care two ways whether or not they wanted him to identify and explain the staff and would probably only care about how it arrived in this world, something that no one would be capable of telling him given that the only person that knew died not long after meeting Old Osmond back when he was still young.

Still at least he now had a perfectly valid reason to give to the young boy, one that he was sure the bluenette would accept as a reasonable excuse and if he didn't… then he was just being unreasonable.

Opening the door to the library he was slightly surprised to see that Miss Longueville was seated incredibly close to the teenager and appeared to be talking to him with hints of amusement in her voice as she apparently explained something to him.

Honestly the sheer ease of which he witnessed the two speak made him feel uncomfortable, he had been trying to get closer to the young woman for a few weeks now and had found her to be rather distant while possessing an air of deception, he had quickly pegged it as a simple matter of her being a commoner around a noble and therefore concerned about insulting him.

It certainly hurt to see the powerful familiar getting along with her despite his obvious ability to completely destroy an inexperienced mage, something that should've at least made the green haired woman nervous of him at the very least, hell he was nervous of the bluenette and he was a square class fire mage!

Shaking his head clear of the thoughts plaguing it, he decided to simply inform the young secretary that Old Osmond was asking for her, even if he was doubtful of the headmasters reasons for wanting her to return.

"Excuse me Miss Longueville, the headmaster needs to see you," he called out after clearing his throat to gain the attention of the duo in the room.

Immediately he heard the young woman let out a sigh of frustration, obviously she was either finding the bluenettes company pleasant, already anticipating the reason the headmaster had called for her or a combination of both.

"Well, I'm sorry Mr Arisato but it would appear that the headmaster wishes to see me now, it certainly was an interesting experience speaking with you," she stated with a smile.

"Likewise Miss Longueville," the dark eyed boy responded calmly, earning a small bow from the bespectacled woman who quickly moved past the older teacher and out the door, "don't worry Professor Colbert, she was just helping me with my reading."

Almost immediately the older of the two stiffened slightly at the boys words before relaxing, after all, it's not like the boy realised he was attracted to the young woman… right?

"Of course, may I ask what brought on such a random statement?" the blue robed man asked calmly, earning a shrug off the boy.

"Just the fact I could pick up jealousy in your voice," the response from the young persona user shocked the man, he had thought he had covered any negative emotion effectively and instead he was finding that his attempts had failed, "don't worry, you were pretty good at masking it but I am an expert in psychological masks."

"Psychological masks?" the confusion that appeared in the balding man's voice was clear even to those that didn't know anything about masking emotions.

"Yeah, anyway, did you get a good reason off the old man or not?" immediately Colbert found himself bristling at the boys complete disrespect of the headmaster.

"Indeed I did, apparently you aren't the first person from another world that he has had the pleasure of meeting," he was hoping to see the bluenette jump in shock, attempt to deny the allegations but he was sorely disappointed when the largest reaction he received was a couple of extra blinks.

"I see, I'll acknowledge that's an understandable reason," and with that the young man continued to read the book he had set out before him.

"To top it off, it would appear that an artefact currently being safeguarded by the school was found on this other worlder before he died," the flame mage stated, once again hoping for a reaction.

"And does the headmaster have any idea how to return me to my world?" Minato asked with a blank tone, earning a slight shifting from the man.

"Well no but if it is something from your world then perhaps you would know how to use it?" the professor explained as calmly as he could manage.

"There's nothing to say it is from my world, if two worlds exist then it's entirely possible that an infinite number of worlds exist and this artefact could have arrived from any number of them," the bluenette stated bluntly, earning several blinks of surprise from the aging teacher.

"What are you talking about?" Colbert asked with curiosity drenching his tone, earning a small shrug from the teen.

"This world could be either in one of two places, one, on a planet in the same universe as the one I came from, or two, in a completely different reality with a few different rules written into reality that allow the existence of magic as you know it," at this statement the older of the two once again blinked in surprise at the mere thought of an entirely different universe existing somewhere out there.

"That certainly sounds interesting, do you have any suspicions concerning which of the two it is?" the glasses wearing man asked with curiosity lacing his tone.

"I'm leaning towards it being a completely different reality to my own," the former SEES member admitted with a shrug, earning a few more blinks from the older of the two.

"And what makes you believe that's the case?" the magic teacher asked him curiously.

"Repetitions," instantly the flame mage gained a look of complete confusion at such an answer, "there are only so many quantum states that can occupy any given area, meaning that if you go far enough you will eventually start to see repetitions."

"However, the observable universe I come from is far too small for any real level of repetition to occur and given that this world has quite a few things in common with my own, like the presence of humans, cats, dogs, horses, language and even basic geography, the probability of it being in the same universe I come from is close to non-existent. It is possible just not plausible," Minato explained to the mage with a calmness that only came from knowing what you were talking about.

"I think I see, however what do you mean by 'quantum states'?" the sheer curiosity that made itself clear in Colberts voice was evident to the persona user who quickly shrugged before explaining.

"Everything is made up of a collection of ridiculously small object we call particles, the number of different types of particle in existence is really quite small however the arrangement of them is what determines everything about an object," he informed the older man who simply blinked in surprise a few times before he decided to see if he got the basic gist of what the boy was saying.

"So you're saying these 'particles' are like tiny bricks and how they fit together and what type is used determines the type and style of house that's made?" earning a nod of acceptance from the bluenette he found himself intrigued at the idea.

"That's the basic gist of it, though it is far more complicated than that once you get into quantum mechanics and wave particle duality," the sheer blandness of the teens tone did nothing to change the fact that Colbert was now shaking like a leaf, given what he had seen of the man so far, he had no doubt he was probably incredibly excited about gaining new knowledge.

"That sounds absolutely fascinating, tell me, would it be possible to learn about all this?" the aging man asked seriously, earning a shrug off the younger of the two.

"I guess so, though I began to teach Tabitha the absolute basics yesterday so I'll probably just teach you what I taught her yesterday," the Japanese teen informed the man calmly before noting a certain gleam that appeared in the balding mans eyes.

"Is that so… I wonder if Old Osmond would permit you to hold a class to pass on your knowledge to the rest of the school," immediately the blue haired familiar felt a sweatdrop form before he decided to make something clear.

"Look, I have no intention of staying here, I will find a way home so while I may be prepared to teach a few people a little science, my main goal is to learn how to read your language and research any spatial slash dimensional distortion magic this world possesses," he informed the blue robed wizard seriously.

"Perhaps, however has it ever occurred to you that teaching here may grant you special privileges, such as assistance in your research?" that statement made the teen freeze, he would definitely admit that assistance in his research would certainly help, even if it was simply sifting through the many tomes that could potentially contain information concerning other worlds and breaking dimensional boundaries.

"I suppose that would be useful… fine, if you want me to teach here then you can go and convince the headmaster to give me a job, after all, it is your idea so you can be the one to try and get it implemented," Minato informed the middle aged man who simply gave him a warm smile.

"Very well then, I'll go and see the headmaster about it right now, hopefully you can start soon," and with that the bespectacled man turned and started walking towards the door.

"However you need to remember something professor," immediately the blue robed man stopped in his tracks, "this is a world where magic exists, I doubt many students will want to learn about something like science, so for that reason, I want the class to be open to the servants as well."

"I'll see what I can do, so until next we meet, farewell Mr Arisato," and with that, the balding man finally left, allowing the bluenette to look back over the book he had been reading with Ms Longueville.

XXX XXX XXX

Louise had to admit, she certainly was feeling better right now than she normally did after class, mainly because everyone still seemed too afraid of drawing her familiars ire and decided to not risk making fun of her like they usually did.

She was still far more concerned about the possibility that she was a void mage than that though and apparently there were two students that seemed to believe she was in fact capable of wielding the legendary element, Tabitha and what really surprised her, Kirche.

She had never for a moment thought that Kirche of all people would accept that she may not be as big a failure as she initially appeared and if she was perfectly honest with herself, it was nice. The simple fact that the person that was essentially her antithesis was prepared to accept the possibility made her heart warm quite a bit and made her question exactly what the redhead thought of her, did she really hate her or was there some underlying reason she was unaware of that made the Germanian treat her like she did?

In the end, all she could really do was let out a sigh as she walked towards the library alongside Tabitha and surprisingly Kirche, sure she expected Tabitha to go there since she was always reading however Kirche didn't usually bother with anything that wasn't male.

In the end she simply concluded that the only reason for the redhead to be going was because Tabitha was. Then again she had known that the two rarely separated, the reasons of which were unknown to anyone outside the duo but that's just the way things went so she didn't question it.

Finally reaching the door to the library, Louise opened it to see a familiar mop of dark blue hair sitting next to a familiar dome of skin, making her blink at the apparent familiarity between Minato and Colbert. What made her smirk though was the look on Kirche's face upon seeing her guardian, the pale faced look of her nerves getting the better of her.

"Ah, Miss Zerbst, Miss Vallière, Miss Tabitha, it is a pleasure to see you all here," came the teacher of fire magic's voice upon seeing the group enter the library, "I suppose I should let you know that starting tomorrow, Mr Arisato here will taking a position as a teacher here at the academy."

The middle aged man's words fell on their ears like a sperm whale dropped from the stratosphere, rendering the group completely silent until their minds finally processed the teachers words.

"WHAT!"

"And I thought libraries were supposed to be quiet places…" Minato sighed out in dismay.

* * *

Well I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, it took so long because the original way it was going didn't feel right to me so I ended up deleting a couple of thousand words and started to rewrite it from that point onwards.

Anyway, until next time

Fenris out!


	6. Introducing Science To Halkeginia

Okay, so I've finally managed to get myself to finish this chapter.

Anyway, sorry about the delay, I've ended up getting distracted by: music, anime, manga, fanfiction, sudoku, video games, getting new ideas in my head and just losing my ability to concentrate on anything.

Anyway, as some of you may have already noticed, I've decided to change my penname recently so from now onwards I am 'The Distorted Shadow'!

Now, before we begin I would like to ask everyone to read my 'Unfinished Ideas' work. It is simply a collection of ideas that I started to write but didn't finish doing, so I would like everyone to read them and give me their opinions on whether or not I should continue writing any of them.

And that is all for now so let's get this show on the road!

* * *

"Montmorency please, I beg of you come back to me," a certain blond boy said as he knelt next to a young girl with blonde hair styled into ringlets, "you are the only one my heart desires."

Several snickers were heard as the class of second years watched the now recovered Guiche attempting to repair his romance with the young woman known as Montmorency Margarita la Fère de Montmorency.

It had been immediately after his crushing defeat at the hands of Minato Arisato that his relationship had suffered a blow of immense proportions, mainly due to the fact that both of the girls he had been dating had rushed to his downed form and started fighting over the fact that he had been dating them… of course then someone had pointed out that they had seen Guiche flirting with both of them at one point or another and the results had been as expected.

Both had dumped him.

They probably would've slapped him for it if he hadn't been in such a fragile condition however he had been fortunate that the water mage in charge of his recovery had prevented them from actually doing so.

That didn't change the fact that he was currently grovelling for forgiveness in the middle of the classroom where everyone could see him.

Louise had to admit to herself that it sure was nice to no longer be the centre of everyones ridicule, even if it was probably more out of fear of retribution than the fact that Guiche was currently such a pathetic sight.

Then again, she also noted that Kirche wasn't joining in on the laughter, though judging by the look on her face, it was only because she wasn't paying attention and instead seemed more traumatized by something she was pretty sure she understood already.

Today her familiar was going to start teaching at the academy. That though made a grin appear on her face as she imagined how Guiche would react to the blue haired boys presence at the front of the classroom… then she remembered another important matter.

Minato wouldn't play favourites. It didn't matter if she was his 'master', he wouldn't give her any preferential treatment and that meant that she very well could be ridiculed if she failed to meet expectations.

The grin that had appeared on her face disappeared with that thought, this class could easily turn out just like all the others she had been involved in and if anything, the fact that here familiar was the one teaching the class meant that if she failed to meet expectations then she would be an even bigger laughing stock than she already was.

Before the situation could get anymore out of hand the door opened to reveal two people she was hoping she wouldn't have to see until later, professor Colbert and Minato, who was carrying a large trunk that she had never seen before.

As soon as the blue haired teen entered the room, an unnatural silence descended upon everyone as most of the students minds began to question the dangerous individuals presence alongside the teacher.

"Good morning class," the bespectacled mage started calmly as he attempted to stop a grin from forming on his face at the fact that everyones attention was currently on the front of the room, "today we are going to have a change from the standard education that has been taught in this academy since its founding, however before that, we must wait for the new students to arrive."

Immediately everyone found themselves wondering what the well known teacher meant as they tried to think over anyone they had seen join recently, quickly coming to a startling conclusion… they had no idea who these new students could possibly be.

"U-um, excuse me," came a nervous voice from the door before the class turned to see who had arrived, only to see Siesta standing with a large group of other servants, "w-we were ordered to come here by the headmaster."

"Ah, yes, come in and sit wherever there is space," the bald man said with a jovial tone before noting that the servants all looked even more concerned now that they were actually being told to remain in the room.

"Professor Colbert, why are the servants here? Are they going to be used to practice on or something?" a plump boy with blond hair asked with a hint of nervousness in his tone.

"Oh no, they are going to be attending this class as students from now on," the fire mage stated with a smile, causing the room to fall silent as everyone outside of Minato, Louise, Kirche and Tabitha started staring at him in disbelief.

Then again, if the four that didn't stare hadn't already been aware that this would happen, they probably would've too.

"W-what do you mean they are going to be students? Commoners can't learn magic!" the girl named Montmorency asked loudly as her disbelief saturated her voice.

"Because from now onwards, this class is no longer focused on magic," the wave of shock that permeated the room at that declaration was clear to everyone, "so I would like to introduce you to the academy's newest teacher, Professor Arisato."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" instantly everyone winced at the shrill shriek that erupted from the lungs of the pale faced and kneeling boy before he passed out at the news.

"I wonder what's wrong with him?" Minato muttered just loud enough for the class to hear, making everyone look at him and blink in surprise.

"Uh… how about the fact that you nearly killed him two days ago?" Kirche asked nervously, honestly she really wasn't looking forward to learning under the dark blue haired boy but then again, she wasn't as averse to it as some of the people she knew.

"Huh?... oh, so _that's _who he is," and with that the entire room sweatdropped at his apparent inability to remember Guiche… well that is until their disbelief was disrupted by a snort from a certain pink haired loli.

"Z-Zero! Don't laugh at something like that!" a random student called out with both a hint of trepidation and anger at the young girls inability to contain herself at a joke only she was privy to.

"That's quite enough," the bored looking, newly appointed teacher stated calmly with a clap of his hands that instantly caused silence to consume the room, "we've wasted enough time as it is, now can the new students please leave the hallway and find somewhere to sit within the classroom."

At once the group of rather stupefied commoners rushed inside in the hope that doing so would prevent them from drawing the dark teens ire.

"Good, now can someone please either pour some water on, or kick the guy that decided it would be a good idea to take a nap on the stairs," once again, he asked the group politely but with an undertone that let them know it was an order… one that the blond girl was more than happy to follow through with by kicking the unconscious boy in the ribs, waking him up rather violently.

"Ah… Montmorency… what is going on? I had the most horrible nightmare, that evil familiar that Zero summoned was made a teacher… haha… can you believe that?" the blond boy started muttering distractedly as he tried to understand why he was on the floor.

"Actually Guiche, that was real," a random student said over the silence, making the blond pale again before turning towards the face that had tormented his nightmares for the past two days, only to start sweating upon seeing the bored look on the teens face… honestly he didn't know which he was more scared of, the nightmarish smile that was ever present in his dreams, or the look of complete dismissal he was receiving right now.

"Now that that has been dealt with, Jean, would you please pass out the material we prepared?" the ridiculously young teacher asked his senior who simply gave a smile before taking the trunk off his junior and opening it to reveal… something that wrought confusion throughout the room.

"Uh… Mi… I mean, Professor Arisato, what are those?" Louise found herself asking, finding referring to her familiar with such a respectful title incredibly awkward.

"They are called a notebook and pen," Minato answered for them, earning looks of confusion at what they considered strange words, "think of them as a substitute for scrolls and quills."

"But why do we need to change to something like this?"another random noble asked incredulously, earning several murmurs of approval from other members of the class.

"Because Ms Chevreuse spent several hours last night assisting in the creation of these objects after Professor Arisato displayed the sheer efficiency that these objects perform their jobs," the bespectacled teacher stated calmly, earning a few looks of surprise at the fact they had an Earth mage assisting in the creation of such simple looking objects.

"The notebooks will take up less space than scrolls and have a greater surface area with which to write on… just think of them as blank books that you are going to write in," the dull eyed teen stated calmly from the front of the class, earning the attention of the class, "the pens have a built in ink supply that has had most of the water removed from it to make it stickier, while the tip only allows the necessary quantities of ink to be applied to the paper, meaning it doesn't waste as much ink and you don't have to wait for it to dry either."

After giving the group the small explanation of why they were changing their media for notes, the former high schooler let out a loud yawn as he simply stood at the front of the room, waiting for the balding fire mage to finish handing out the resources that had taken half the night to prepare.

Honestly if it wasn't for Ms Chevreuse they never would've gotten even one pen made, let alone the two hundred they did with her assistance. It really was amazing just how easily magic could replace machines for mass production.

"And all done," Professor Colbert stated with a smile upon making sure everyone in the room had their hands on a set of notebook and pen before taking a set for himself as he proceeded to sit at the bottom of some of the stairs, more than happy with the thought of starting to learn a subject that he had pretty much been trying to create over the course of several years.

"Good, now to begin with I am going to give you a brief overview of what I intend on teaching you during my time as a teacher in the academy," the dark haired boy started calmly as he proceeded to pick up a piece of chalk, "forgive me if I make a few spelling mistakes but I'm still a beginner with your writing system."

The entire class shifted their eyes as they took in his demeanour, most of the class couldn't find it in themselves to believe that this was the same person who had mercilessly crushed the dot class earth mage mere days before… then again they began to wonder how much of their memories were tainted by the knowledge of the violence he could unleash if he wanted to.

"Now, the first thing on the agenda is to teach you a more efficient mathematical system, all science requires at least some level of mathematics and the numerals you use are rather inefficient," he started as he picked up a piece of chalk and started writing, "by the way, you don't need to write down this part of the lesson if you don't want to."

"I will also teach you some basic biology, chemistry, physics and depending on how quickly everyone learns, I may start going into more advanced aspects of the sciences later on in the year," he informed them of the brief summary of his lesson plan, "it has been decided by the headmaster that each year shall get two, four hour sessions with me a week, so I shall split the lesson into four segments, each fifty minute segment shall be dedicated to one of the four subjects I have just mentioned with a ten minute break every hour, during that break you may go to the toilet, have something to eat or drink or if you don't feel like any of that, simply rest or chat before the next part of the lesson starts. Any questions?"

The room remained perfectly quiet as he finished his explanation, honestly he was hoping one of them would notice that there would be an extra ten minutes that was unaccounted for but in the end he concluded that either they didn't notice, or didn't care about enough to warrant asking about.

"Uh… are you certain we're allowed to learn this?" a random servant asked hesitantly earning a nod from the dark haired teen.

"Yes, if anything it is probably even more important that people incapable of using magic learn these subjects," the former SEES leader stated in his usual drawl, surprising everyone present, "without the aid of magic making tasks easier, those incapable of using it will start using the knowledge I am going to impart on them in order to make their tasks easier, doing so will result in a technological boom that will eventually supplant the need of magic for simple tasks on a large scale."

The entire class immediately hitched their breath at the thought of magic being rendered obsolete and given how half the people present were mages, it was clear that his words would cause a stir.

The persona user found himself unable to hear any single shout over the cacophony of noise that the 'noble' teens were making and that was when he was extremely glad he had spent a part of the night he wasn't trying to convince Ms Chevreuse to make a large quantity of pens and notebooks, experimenting with his runes.

The class all stopped their complaints upon feeling the malicious, heavy and outright terrifying aura that dropped on them all as a monstrous face with long horns appeared behind their newest teacher, honestly the aura felt nothing like the one of that death god he had summoned earlier… no that was empty, cold and uncaring, this was outright evil.

"Now, settle down class, I haven't even finished my explanation," Minato stated calmly as he proceeded to let his partial channelling of Lucifer drop, "now as I was saying, with technology created by those that cannot use magic making tasks simpler and reduce the reliance your civilisation has on it, your descendents can then start using their magic for less mundane purposes and start researching far more interesting matters."

After making that statement the students all proceeded to come out of their pale faced stupors and let out involuntary shudders at the memories of what they had just witnessed.

"There is of course the fact that science has limits, just as magic does, however I am certain that by combining the two, this world will manage to achieve of level of prosperity that my own failed to reach," at that statement everyone finally managed to bring themselves down from their fear induced high, "now then, that is the first ten minutes of the lesson up, so now it is time to start teaching you the absolute basics of mathematics… Arabic numerals, addition and subtraction."

XXX XXX XXX

Four hours later the conflagration of nobles and servants poured out of the room, more than happy with the idea of going to the Alviss dining hall to fill their stomachs after the series of unusual lectures.

Honestly it did seem strange to them that they were required to learn a whole new way of writing numbers but then again, it did make sense and above all else, took up a lot less room than their current system. One of the servants had pointed out that fact and asked if they would ever deal with really big numbers… he had then told them about a number called a googol and they instantly understood why they were changing their method of writing, if it was that ludicrously long written in this new system then they doubted they would ever be capable of writing it in their current one.

He had also surprised them by mentioning that one of the tricks in mathematics allowed the number to be written with a mere five symbols as opposed to the one hundred and one they expected.

Still, at least they got a fun new word out of it.

Then he had started telling them about Physics… not actually teaching them anything outside of concepts and when asked he simply responded that Physics requires a certain level of mathematics to understand. When someone questioned him he simply wrote a simple series of squiggles on the board 'E=mc2' and told them that it was probably the most famous equation in his home world.

That got everyone to shut up.

If the class was honest, they learned a few rather simple ideas throughout the class, though that is mainly what it was, ideas without much expansion. It did make sense however, despite the lack of detail his explanations did make it quite clear that there was a _lot_ he was leaving out in order to stop himself from overwhelming them with too much knowledge… something the servants were extremely thankful for, after all they hadn't learned anything new in years and as such required a little more time to process the concepts than the constantly learning nobles.

Still, ideas like atoms, particles, cells, forces and chemical reactions were more than enough for one day.

"Dammit! I wanted to learn more about cells!" a pouting Montmorency stated with obvious frustration clear in her tone as she walked out of the lecture hall with a certain blond boy at her side, apparently her anger towards him had died after enough grovelling during the three breaks they had had earlier.

"Dear Montmorency, such an expression does not suit your beautiful visage," Guiche stated in as suave a tone as he could manage despite the numerous bruises that had formed along his body from the blond haired water mages more… aggressive rejections before she had caved.

Apparently Minato had never witnessed it due to looking at other things when it happened… though many people were suspicious that he looked away intentionally but given how he never seemed to remember the boys name they dismissed the thought.

Even if they were right.

"But if he is right and people are made up of cells then that knowledge could revolutionise water magic everywhere!" the young girl stated with the frustration clear in her voice at the fact that they didn't really know anything more than that, hell she didn't even know what a cell was supposed to be like, even if she had managed to come to the conclusion that cells were made up of lots of atoms as opposed to a handful of them.

It didn't hurt that the teacher had confirmed her thoughts by informing them that indeed, cells were several million times larger than atoms… when asked to explain what he meant, he told them if an atom was the size of a pea, then a cell would be the size of Halkeginia.

It was then that everyone finally understood just what sort of scale they were dealing with.

"Yes but didn't… _he_ say he would teach us more about them later?" the golem user said with obvious hesitation at the mere prospect of talking about the persona user.

"Well, yes but it's frustrating to find out about stuff like this and not get any deeper explanation," the blonde girl muttered indignantly, knowing full well that she was simply being a little impatient in her desire to learn more about this 'Biology'.

"Oh stop complaining, if you really want to learn more, then just wait for the next class and pester him then," Kirche said from a few feet away before continuing, "besides, I just hope everyone stops doing things that make him smile like that…"

Everyone that heard her last comment shuddered at the memory of their new teacher's 'I'm going to ask you nicely' smile… it didn't help that the outright creepy smile was always accompanied by that malevolent aura and hellish visage that floated behind him.

"Well, to be fair, it does get our attention," Louise muttered relatively quietly as she contemplated the fact that her familiar was capable of commanding a level of respect (via fear) that she felt she never could… hell it hadn't even been a week and he already had the backing of the teachers for Brimir's sake!

"More like give us heart attacks…" a random student muttered under their breath earning several agreements from the others that were listening in on the conversation.

"Well, at least we're free from that oppressive regime once more," another random noble stated with an air of relief as they released a sigh of contentment at the knowledge of freedom.

That statement made all the servants twitch in irritation.

"Yeah… for now anyway," Kirche stated before glancing towards her shortest friend, "what did you think about the lesson Tabitha?"

"Informative," came the muttered response, then again out of everyone in the room, she had been the person to react the least when he started smiling that creepy smile of his… even if she did tend to glance away from the apparition of malice when it appeared.

"Well, I guess I shouldn't have expected any more than that from you huh?" and with a sigh, the red head decided to let her current train of thoughts slip out of her mouth, "so why don't we all just stop talking about that class and start talking about the important things… like how good he is in bed."

It took everyone several seconds to register what the tanned teen said before they all froze and stared at her while the Germanian simply gave the pink haired girl an expectant look.

"W-what are you looking at me for?" Louise found herself asking the much taller girl, obviously unhappy with the insinuations that she was making.

"Well something must have happened between you two, I mean seriously, before you were always trying to make him submit to you and now you're actually trying to defend him," the busty red head explained, earning an angry expression off the significantly shorter girl.

"It's nothing like that you pervert!" the young Vallière shouted in anger at the fire mages words, "he just told me a little about his past and that's it!"

"Oh? He told you his past? What did he say?" the red head asked, curious as to what sort of thing the blue haired teacher had experienced.

"That's none of your business," the short teen stated while crossing her arms over her chest angrily, "if you want to learn more about him, then ask him yourself because I'm not going to talk about private matters like that with you or anyone else, understand?!"

"There's no need to be so aggressive about it Zero, I was only asking," the significantly more developed of the two stated with a sigh at the aggression she received for her curiosity.

"And like I said, I'm not the person you should ask," it was quite clear to everyone present that the conversation was now over and whatever had happened between the girl and her familiar had completely changed their relationship with each other.

XXX XXX XXX

"Well, that didn't quite go how I expected," Professor Colbert admitted as he stayed behind to speak with Minato about how the first lesson had gone.

"How did you expect it to go?" the dull eyed boy asked calmly as he cleared the blackboard of the significant quantities of text he had placed on it. Sure the class had made a few complaints about the fact that some words were written in a completely different language to what they knew, but he had simply admitted that he didn't know how to write these words in their alphabet… it didn't help that Professor Colbert himself seemed lost on how to spell some of these words himself.

"Well, honestly I didn't expect you to be capable of taking such absolute control of the students," the balding man admitted as he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "I also wasn't expecting you to give such a brief overview of so many different concepts either."

"Well, they are simple concepts, most of the hard part of science is delving deeper and learning the intricacies of each subject and understanding how each interacts with the other," the former SEES member explained to the bespectacled teacher.

"Is that so, so you're saying that chemistry, physics, biology and mathematics are all interconnected?" the older of the two asked with obvious curiosity in his tone, "that is completely unlike magic, after all, with magic theory for fire magic has no correlation with earth, water or wind magic."

"That's because magic revolves around manipulating the world to act unnaturally, while science is the art of understanding how the world acts naturally," Minato gave another simple explanation before putting down the eraser he had been clearing the blackboard with and walking towards the door with the balding teacher taking a position next to the teen.

"I see, I never actually thought about how that would work but I think I understand now," Colbert gave a nod of conviction which the persona user took no notice of.

"Yeah, now I have a question for you," the stoic teen stated in his usual drawl, "since I'm a member of the faculty now, am I supposed to sit with the other members of staff during meals now?"

"Of course," the blue clad man admitted with his usual smile, "as a teacher it is your right to sit with the other teachers and use that time to get to know your colleagues better."

"So it is my right but is it my duty?" the dull eyed Japanese teen asked calmly.

"Well no… but it would be nice to discuss a few things with you," the bespectacled teacher admitted while rubbing the back of his head.

"Such as?" the dark haired teacher prodded with an obvious lack of interest in his tone.

"Well, that apparition you kept summoning during the lesson," Colbert admitted with a shrug.

"It was a partial summoning of Lucifer, the root of all evil," the tone that Minato made his statement caused his colleague to nod in acceptance before realising exactly what the boy was saying.

"THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!" obviously the fire mage found the statement far more serious than the Japanese teen, "whatever gave you the idea that summoning something like that is a good idea?!"

"Anime," the one word response made the blue robed teacher pause in confusion.

"What?" was all the bespectacled fire mage could bring himself to say, hoping that he would get a proper explanation for what the teen meant.

"It's nothing you need to worry about," the former leader of SEES stated calmly, "is there anything else you wish to talk about Jean?"

"Now hold on just a minute, we haven't finished talking about the fact you summoned the root of all evil during class!" Colbert really was taking his casual admittance with more concern than was necessary, though given that he wasn't aware of exactly what a persona was, it really wasn't that much of a surprise.

"Yes we have," the blunt manner that the blue haired teen made his statement nearly caught the more experienced teacher off guard before he put his headphones on and turned on his mp3 player, allowing him to ignore any further attempts the fire mage would make at getting him to talk about Lucifer.

Of course Colbert didn't stop attempting to get him to listen but then again, Minato had dealt with far more intimidating, stubborn and annoying people than the middle aged fire mage and found blocking out all the attempted distractions quite easy, especially with the aid of his beats.

The duo spent several minutes walking towards the Alviss dining hall while receiving odd looks off the few students and servants that saw the incredibly one sided argument, thought that was probably due to the fact that the younger of the two didn't pay the highly respected teacher any attention.

Upon finally reaching the great hall, Minato paid no attention to the cessation of everyones ordinary actions as they proceeded to look at him with cautious eyes, just like they usually did ever since he crushed Guiche with Thanatos… of course he couldn't really blame them, after all he had been going for the intimidation factor when he did it.

Of course the fact that he walked up to and proceeded to sit at the teachers table caused a stir, not that he could hear it over the track that was currently playing on his mp3 player.

It was with a quick 'Itadakimasu' that he proceed to collect food to his plate and start to systematically devour it with the force of a tectonic plate… in other words, a calm and constant pace that showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Of course the fact that he didn't say a prayer to Brimir and hadn't removed his headphones made several people in the room scowl, sure he had never made a prayer to Brimir before but the fact that he was currently sitting at the teachers table and still ignoring their cultural customs was a bit of a sore point for them.

It actually took someone removing one of the discs from his ear to get his attention.

"It is awfully rude to sit down to a feast and not say your prayers to the founder Mr Arisato," a man with no discerning features stated with obvious distaste in his tone.

"Well, to be fair, I have nothing to thank him for," the dull eyed teen stated with a shrug, "after all, if he hadn't appeared, I would still be in my own world doing the task I chose to dedicate my life to."

Everyone in the hall looked on as the unmemorable teacher scowled further at the Japanese boys statement, obviously unhappy with their worlds customs being discarded as something unnecessary.

"That doesn't matter, you are here now, eating this feast brought to you by the system given to us by the founder and not praying to him for it is unacceptable!" almost immediately, everyone in the room flinched at the sudden feeling of malice that washed over them as a dark aura surrounded the persona user and Lucifer was once again partially summoned behind him.

"Please shut up before I decide to take a leaf out of Shinji's book and smash your face in," the eerily calm manner that the blue haired boy spoke that sentence made shivers run down everyones spines, of course that was part of the reason for it… when intimidating it was sometimes scarier to not display aggression as it made others feel as though you are looking down on them.

Of course that didn't work if the target didn't know you were more dangerous than them, however with Lucifer adding to the effect… well it wasn't hard to tell who was more dangerous.

Silence reigned for several seconds before the apparition disappeared and the former SEES member went back to eating at the pace he had been before.

"Minato… please explain why you feel the need to summon _that_ thing all the time," Professor Colbert asked in a tone that made it clear he was close to having a mental breakdown at the constant exposure to the powerful persona.

"It is effective," the dark haired teen stated in between mouthfuls as he lazily watched everyone that hadn't witnessed the demonized form of Lucifer yet finally get their wits about them and start whispering to each other while giving him fearful looks… it almost made him wonder if Shinjiro ever felt this way when intimidating others, the abstract curiosity that had him wondering just how badly others thought of him.

The tense atmosphere didn't let up for an instant as everyone kept at least one eye on the academically talented figure that had joined the instructors. While a few of them were watching him out of curiosity and a hope of getting a proper read on him, the vast majority were simply too afraid to let him out of their sight in case he turned on them.

Not that he cared about that, at most he only considered it a minor curiosity but that didn't change the one simple fact that they meant little more to him than a fun social study of super powered children being put in the presence of a higher entity.

And so far it was looking as if they were simply acting like normal humans, frightened for justifiable but flawed reasoning.

It was also interesting to see the reactions to his brief overview of the classes he would be hosting, while most showed outright scepticism, there were a few who seemed to consider the concepts worthwhile and even displayed an attitude he would happily encourage, the attitude that knowledge of the world and how it works could help make magic even more useful than it already was.

Of course they were vastly outweighed by the number that didn't believe a word he was saying, didn't care about what he was saying or were too focused on glaring at the servants for getting a chance at a minor education.

That last group was the main reason he kept bringing out Lucifer during the lesson.

He shook his head clear of those thoughts and instead focused on something else, his inner world… the sea of his soul and more specifically, the personae contained within… all one hundred and sixty nine of them.

He hadn't really paid much attention to them before, instead he had simply picked the ones that he had used in his fight with Ryoji before Nyx's descent, however the night before when he had been attempting to see if it was possible to imitate the dark aura's usually seen in anime, he had come to a startling revelation, the universe arcana had opened the door of his soul and allowed him free access to all the personae he possessed the potential for… even if they had been reset to their basic states.

So no more Helel with Victory Cry which meant no more spamming Armageddon like some sort of deranged demigod hell bent on destroying the world.

And Satan had even lost black viper for crying out loud! He almost felt like crying over that fact since he could still remember that time he had gone one on one with death and beat the crap out of it by spamming that almighty spell.

Still, at least there was a consolation prize… after all with that many personae in his arsenal he didn't exactly need to use ridiculously overpowered attacks like that, especially given how he was in a world that didn't have the dark hour or shadows that can resist magic like that, instead all he had to deal with if push came to shove was nice squishy humans with no resistance to any of the elements despite their ability to wield them in ways he had never seen before.

That part interested him quite a bit, he had seen Ms Chevreuse literally transform an object into another with a single wave of a wand, that was how she had managed to make the pens and notebooks last night after all, however the real question that itched in the back of his mind was simple.

How strong were these people in a fight?

He was no fool, he knew that humans were constantly at war and he had no doubt that he would probably end up in some form of conflict before too long, his luck just seemed to work that way.

That is why he had decided that he needed a weapon, hopefully a completely soulless piece of trash sword that was mass produced via moulding as opposed to forging, that way he could see if he could figure out how to combine it with a persona like he used to have that woman at the antiques shop do for him before the fall.

Yes, he was really looking forward to recreating Lucifer's Blade and showing everyone in this world the true power of a fusion weapon, hell, he may even give it to someone before returning to his own world, of course the question of what they would do with such a powerful object was up for debate but hey, he would make sure to give it to someone worthy of wielding that sort of power.

On second thoughts, maybe it would be better to just take it back with him.

Yes, that seemed like a good idea.

* * *

And that is all for today.

I hope you at least found this chapter enjoyable, hopefully I'll get around to doing the next chapter within the next two months (since I'm going to be trying to update my other fics as well).

So until next time...

Shadow out!


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